One in the Same
by coolbyrne
Summary: A man is in jail for a series of brutal murders. Now, someone is doing the same, with a slightly different twist. Is it a copycat, or something else entirely? It's up to Detective Carol Jordan and psychologist Dr. Tony Hill to find out.
1. Default Chapter

**DISCLAIMER: **The characters of Tony Hill, Carol Jordan, Don Merrick, Kevin Geoffries, John Brandon, and Paula belong to Val McDermid, and were blatantly borrowed from her series of books, generally known as "Wire in the Blood". All others belong to me.

**SUMMARY:** A man is in jail for a series of brutal murders. Now, someone is doing the same, with a slightly different twist. Is it a copycat, or something else entirely? It's up to Detective Carol Jordan and psychologist Dr. Tony Hill to find out.

**SPOILER:** A big one if you don't know what happened to Maggie in "Still She Cries" (episode 2, series 2)

**A/N:** For those who have read the books, I suppose I would put this just before "The Last Temptation", considering the life-altering event both Carol and Tony go through together in that book. If you've seen the series on BBC America, I think this would fit in just about anywhere, though probably best as a continuation of the last episode. And for those who have neither read the books nor seen the series… well, carry on! I must admit to taking a huge liberty by giving Carol a gun; that is entirely, factually incorrect, though creatively necessary. Though they may never see it, my thanks to Val McDermid for creating these wonderful characters in the first place, and to Robson Green and Hermione Norris for bringing them to life in the most brilliant manner on screen. And finally, to papiliondae for beta-ing… and whatnot.

--

_He loved these moments. The night was silent and dark but his senses were alive with sensation. Light from a lone street lamp filtered weakly through the tree that stood behind him, creating tiny diamonds that flickered on the glass. He pressed his forehead to the window and gazed at the sleeping form on the bed inside. He stood transfixed, as her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, he could almost hear her breathing. The cool night breeze tickled across his skin, making the hairs at the nape of his neck prickle, but he wasn't nervous. No, he had done this before, and grown accustomed to the little rush of excitement, the surge of adrenaline that always coursed through him before he tamped it down. Disciplining himself to concentration._

But for these few moments he enjoyed the hot spread of excitement through his body, a wry grin sliding across his face as his hand reached down for his growing erection. This was not new either, he reminded himself, as he undid his zipper. Though some might consider it a weakness he knew it was a necessary part of the process, but it had to be done now, then there was less chance that his emotions would fuck things up later. Later required concentration, not ejaculation. He bit back a laugh at the rhyme and quickly brought himself to a quiet release, careful not to leave a mess. Wiping his hand on the back of his trousers, he took a deep breath. Time to get to work.

He loved these moments.

--

As his students filed out Tony walked up into the empty lecture theatre, bending to retrieve a discarded piece of paper before slumping into a chair. He sat there, head resting on his folded arms, eyes closed for long moments until he smiled as he felt another presence in the room.

"Carol," he said.

She stopped in her tracks. "How on earth did you know?"

Tony lifted his head and ran a hand over his face. "I don't know," he admitted. "I suddenly felt much better."

Now it was her turn to smile. She sat on the edge of the large desk at the front of the room and looked up at him. "Bad day?"

He groaned. "One hundred and sixty eight students a day. Which in itself wouldn't faze me in the slightest, if 99 of them didn't want to be Clarice Starling or the next Patricia Cornwell. We won't even get into the inherent irony that we're in England and three quarters of my class are male." Carol chose to remain silent, allowing Tony a moment to vent. "Everybody wants to know about the John Wayne Gacys, the Fred Wests, the Jeffrey Dahmers. They want to hear the gruesome details rather than the academic process." His tone became one of mock-eagerness. "I'm not interested in the why; tell me all about the how!" He leaned back and crossed his arms in defeat. "Why someone feels compelled to take souvenirs of his victims is met with blank disinterest. They've seen it all on telly and think they're all crack profilers. But tell them the souvenir is the victim's genitalia, and you're either met with poorly concealed revulsion or morbid curiosity."

"Those who look in from the outside either can't understand how you can do the things you do, or succumb to the morbid side of human nature and want to know how those you study can do the things they do. 

"No wonder I haven't had a date in over eig.. four years."

Carol couldn't help but laugh. "Then you just need to date someone who isn't on the outside looking in."

He thought about this for a time. "I often feel like I'm the one on the outside looking in," he admitted at last. They were both silent for a moment until Tony asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry?"

"It's mid-afternoon. Shouldn't one of us be working?" Eyes narrowed, he asked, "And how did you know I wasn't?"

"I am a detective, you know."

"Ah, right."

"To be honest, I made the assumption that you hadn't found anything to fill your Thursdays yet, since Maggie…." she gave him a sympathetic look. "Anyway, I just happened to be on lunch and thought you might be available."

"For what?"

She laughed again. "Well, lunch for starters. I haven't had the chance to take you out to celebrate since you took up this new position. Which I see is going wonderfully well for you," she added dryly.

He stood up and walked down the few steps towards her. "New case?"

"Sorry?"

"Lunch. I presume it's so we can sit down and talk about whatever new case you're on."

"No," she corrected him. Speaking slowly, she repeated, "I haven't had the chance to take you out to celebrate since you took up this new position. Lunch. Between two friends. No work." When she saw his raised eyebrow, she waved her hand dismissively. "We could talk about football or… something." 

"Talk about football?" he asked in amazement.

Carol slid off the desk and started towards the door, not looking back to see if Tony was following. "I'll have you know I could teach you a thing or two about football."

He quickly reached her side and leaned into her shoulder. "Carol, you teach me something every day."

--

Kevin Geoffries was bored. Unbelievably bored. He gazed through the window of his new office, absently registering his colleagues going about their daily business, lost in his thoughts. Rising up through the ranks of the police force, he had achieved Detective Inspector not a month ago. Yet any hopes of higher rank bringing more exciting cases had been quickly dashed when he realized that all crimes were the same, no matter the rank. Promotion only brought him a pay rise and more paperwork. Even as he recognized the irony of wishing for what he was employed to prevent he couldn't help but think, "I'd kill for a murder right about now." He looked up at the ceiling, addressing some unseen deity. "Sorry," he apologized.

He looked back down to the document he had read several times over this morning, pushing it around idly and weighing his options. "What the hell," he thought at long last. Standing up, he grabbed the paper and walked out of his office.

"Don," he called out as he made his way to the older man's desk.

Don looked up from his paper. "Yeah?"

"Busy, I see," Kevin commented.

"Have you come out to count the panels in our ceiling now that you're done with yours?" he asked innocently.

"Piss off." Tossing the document onto Don's desk, Kevin asked, "Do you remember that serial killer we had about three years ago? Killed the vics, put them in the bath and covered them with ice cubes?"

Don looked off to the side for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Jeff Gibbons, a.k.a. Mr. Freeze?" he guessed. Seeing Kevin's nod, he went on, "Entered the bedroom through the ground floor window, smothered the vic with one hand, then tossed them into a bath full of ice cubes. Threw off the time of death."

"That's the one."

Don looked up. "Do I get a gold star?"

Kevin frowned. "Just read that. Came in the morning reports today."

Sighing, Don picked up the paper. After several moments, Don glanced up again. "So?"

"So? Aren't you struck by the similarities?"

"Similarities?" Don asked. "This victim was dismembered and stuck in a freezer. The pathologist won't even be able to tell how she died until she thaws out."

"He broke in through the bedroom window. Ground floor, just like Gibbons. A photograph was missing from a frame, and she was a brunette. Same as the others."

Don shrugged. "Fine, I'll give you that. But how about these numbers on the wall? Gibbons never did anything like that. 'E-26, G-24'. What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," Kevin admitted. "At first I thought 'G' stood for 'Gibbons', but he was convicted of killing twenty six women, not twenty four."

"Oh yeah," Don said as if the idea had just occurred to him. "I would think the fact that Jeff Gibbons has been in jail for two years of a six hundred and fifty year sentence might throw cold water on your theory."

"Well, my theory isn't that Gibbons did this, but it could be a copycat. Besides, wouldn't be the first time DCI Jordan put a man on trial for something he didn't do."

Don's jaw tightened. "I'm going to pretend I never heard that. If it wasn't for DCI Jordan, you wouldn't be standing in front of me right now, and it would be my name on that door over there."

Kevin nodded apologetically, knowing he had overstepped the mark. He did owe Carol his job and this promotion, and suddenly he felt badly about the remark. "You're right, Don. I'm just going stir-crazy in that damn office." He picked up the slip of paper. "I think we should go check this out."

Don's jaw nearly hit the desk. "What? Go up to Sutherland? To check out what? Does DCI Jordan know about this?"

"I'm DI, I've got some authority around here. Come on, Don," he all but pleaded. "Have you got anything else to do?"

He watched as the young DI walked towards the exit. Groaning, Don stood up and grabbed his coat. "I'll be lucky if I'm not looking for a new job by the end of the day.

--

"You've seen one cop shop, you've seen them all," Don thought to himself as he and Kevin waited at the front desk of the Sutherland police station. A page had gone out ten minutes ago for a DCI Samuels and Don was just about to complain about the tiny chair that he was wedged into when a tall bulky figure approached them.

"DI Geoffries?" The man asked Don.

He jerked a thumb in Kevin's direction. "He's DI Geoffries. I'm Inspector Don Merrick." He held out a hand, which the large man shook.

"DCI Samuels," he announced as he shook Kevin's hand. "You boys are from Bradfield?" The two men nodded. "What brings you up north?"

"We got this off the wire this morning." Kevin handed Samuels the print out.

Glancing down, Samuels grimaced. "Ah yes. Ghastly. One of our junior officers nearly contaminated the crime scene by vomiting." He looked up again. "So I ask again, what brings you up north?"

The man's tone put Kevin on an uneven footing, but he decided to go ahead anyway. "Do you remember the Jeff Gibbons case? About three years ago?"

The officer nodded. "Yes. Not my jurisdiction, of course, but you can't escape the media, even up here." His smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "'Mr. Freeze', I believe they called him, or some equally childish name."

"Right," Kevin said. "Broke into the bedroom window, suffocated the vic, and removed a photograph from the scene."

Samuel's eyes narrowed as he quickly picked up on Kevin's train of thought. He barked out a short laugh. "And based on that, you think this has something to do with a case that was solved three years ago?"

"You have to admit there are similarities," Kevin offered.

"Similarities?" Samuels repeated, and Don could barely prevent himself from looking over to Kevin and saying, "I told you so." When Kevin remained silent, Samuels looked over to Don. "Is there nothing else for you to do in Bradfield?"

"Apparently not, sir." he muttered.

"Well, I'm sorry this was a wasted trip, gentlemen," Samuels said, without a trace of apology in his voice. "Please be sure to pass along my thanks to DCI Jordan, but for now, we'll try to manage without her help." He caught the quick look of guilt before Kevin could hide it. "Oh, I see," he smiled. "Well, perhaps thanks aren't necessary, but rather a request. A request that she keeps her DIs on a tighter leash and to let those of us who were hired to police this area do so. Now, as unusual as it may seem, there is much to do around here and I need to get to it." With that, he turned and left without another word.

Don and Kevin mustered as much dignity as the situation allowed and left. Neither spoke until they reached the car, when Don finally broke the silence. "The good news is, the paint on your door is still new enough that they should be able to scrape your name off in a jiffy."

"Piss off," Kevin snarled, and slammed the car door behind him.

--

"You know, I was rather surprised to find our lives –Maggie's and mine- weren't all that different."

They had just carried their chips to a window table of the tiny shop and sat down when Tony began the conversation. The can Carol was bringing to her lips stopped midway.

"What do you mean?" she asked incredulously. "What in the world does your life have in common with a murderer?"

"Well, perhaps nothing on the surface, but take today for instance. This would normally be my day to visit Maggie. Every Thursday for over five years. Then I got thinking about how regulated life is. Now Maggie, she had to maintain a specific schedule because of her incarceration. But how is my life any different? In order to be at the job that I am expected to attend every day, my alarm clock goes off at the same time every morning. I'm asked to be present at work at a specific time and am sternly reprimanded if I am not. I am relieved of my teaching duties at a specific time every day. My medical visits are regulated in a similar manner. Then I go home knowing that in order to fulfill the same schedule the very next day, I must go to bed at a time very similar to the night before. The only difference between me and Maggie is that she was incarcerated."

"The difference is, you didn't murder a handful of young girls, thus leaving the courts no choice but to take your freedom away."

Tony looked away, forlorn. "But that's just it, isn't it? What's freedom? Is this," he held out his hands, "freedom?"

She grabbed one of his hands. "It's not about sticking to a schedule, you know. That's not what life is about. That's part of life, but that's not life. Life is what you do with the moments you get in between. It's what you do in the unplanned moments."

He looked back at her and tilted his head. "Yes, but are there really any unplanned moments in life?"

Sighing, she grabbed a chip and popped it into her mouth. "Well I certainly didn't plan on having a discussion on existentialism with you when I invited you out for a bite to eat." She let the smile sneak through before turning serious again. "I am sorry about Maggie."

"I know," he thanked her.

She tilted her head. "Is that what's got you so down?"

"What do you mean?"

Reaching across the short space between them, Carol rested her hand on his arm. "Come on," she said softly. "This re-evaluation of your self-worth, this sudden disenchantment with your job."

"I wouldn't call it sudden," he interjected forlornly.

Her mouth twitched, but she kept the smile hidden. "All right, not sudden. Whatever. You know, I many not be a shrink, but I am a damn good listener."

"I know," he acknowledged, "and I appreciate the offer, but there's nothing to tell." He caught her pointed look. "Really."

A telephone ringing interrupted her reply. Tony began to pat his pockets in search of the phone when Carol stopped him.

"It's mine," she said, before flipping it open. "Carol Jordan." She paused, listening. "Yes, I'm DCI Jordan." Another pause. "Oh, DCI Samuels." She looked at Tony and shrugged at his inquisitive expression. As the caller continued to speak, Carol's face grew darker. "I see. Yes, I understand your position completely. I appreciate you calling me and keeping me informed. You can be sure this won't happen again. Yes, thank you. You, too. Goodbye." She snapped the phone shut furiously. "You can be damn sure this won't happen again," she gritted between clenched teeth.

"Dare I ask who will be receiving a visit from Hurricane Carol, or shall I just follow the trail of carnage?" Tony inquired.

"You won't be able to recognize them in the carnage when I'm finished," she vowed and stood up. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I've got –"

"-some carnage to create. Yes, I got that," he deadpanned as he stood up with her.

Carol glared. "Careful, or I'll get a head start here." Tony held up his hands in surrender. "Shall I give you a lift back to the university?" she asked, civility back in her voice.

Tony shook his head. "No. You know what? I think I'll walk. Clear my thoughts. Come up with something to do now that my Thursdays are free."

"Well you know you could always share them with me."

He pursed his lips and gave it some thought. "I'm not sure you could afford me on your wage."

Feigning disappointment, Carol sighed. "Then I suppose we'll just have to meet as friends." Satisfied with the smile she received, she touched a finger to her chin. "That reminds me. Keep Saturday the 24th free."

"Oh?"

"Yes, 'oh'. I've got plans for us."

She had almost made it to the door before his voice returned. In a tone that sounded more assured than he felt, he called out, "What… what kind of plans?"

Weighing the amusement of keeping him in the dark against the sympathy she felt over his discomfort, she succumbed to the latter. Standing in front of him again, she reached down into her pocket and pulled out an envelope.

"For you," she said.

He took it from her, immediately recognizing the neat handwriting addressing the envelope to him as hers.

"What is it?"

She rolled her eyes. "You could just open it, you know."

"Hmmm? Oh, right." He slid a finger under the flap and deftly broke the envelope open. Holding up two tickets in his hand, he looked at Carol in amazement. "Newcastle. You bought two tickets to a football match?"

"You do like Newcastle, don't you?"

"You know I do."

"Good, because you and I are going." When it appeared he would say nothing more, she reached over and playfully cupped his mouth shut. As close as she was, she couldn't help but lean forward and softly kiss his cheek. "Happy birthday," she whispered into his ear. He pulled back in surprise and she laughed. "You didn't think I'd forget, did you?" She started walking backwards to the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some carnage to create."

She turned and had her hand on the door handle when he called out again. "Carol."

She looked back and waited for him to continue. His mouth moved several times but nothing came out. She winked. "I'll stop by later," she promised and left him standing in the middle of the shop, thrilled to be alive.

--


	2. one2

_He looked at the picture of the pretty brunette that was pinned to his wall and couldn't help but admire his handiwork. The wall was woefully bare, but considering he had only been in the country for nine weeks, he was quite proud of his accomplishment. After all, these things took time and planning. 'If you're going to do something, you might as well take the time to do it right,' his mother always told him. A flash of anger flooded over him and he pushed it aside. 'No time for that now,' he chastised himself._

He had come home on his lunch break to spend some time with the photo, since he hadn't had enough time earlier that morning. Rather than keep him awake, the residue of adrenaline left in his system after the murder last night had lulled him into a blissful sleep. It always did. Then the alarm had shrilled and work beckoned.

He looked at his watch and sighed. 'Not enough time,' he thought. 'Never enough time.' He consoled himself with knowing there would be more pictures later. Many more.

--

"Oh shit," Don thought as the familiar image of his boss came down the hall. His escape into the nearby gents was foiled by a steely glare from Carol and a sharp command.

"My office. Now."

"Right you are, boss," he said meekly, as he was left in her wake.

The door to Kevin's office was slightly ajar, which saved Carol the effort of kicking it in. He very nearly toppled backwards out of his swivel chair, but she didn't bother noticing.

"DI Geoffries –and don't be surprised if that's the last time you are called by that title –can I have a word with you in my office, please?" she asked sweetly, fooling no one. She didn't bother to wait for his response before turning on her heel and leaving.

In a matter of moments, the two men stood guiltily in front of Carol's desk, like two schoolboys in front of their head-master. She took no notice of their arrival, choosing instead to peruse some of the notes and memos that were on her desk. Minutes seemed to stretch into hours until Don coughed nervously. Still, Carol didn't look up.

'Poor Don,' she thought. 'He had to go before he got here. I bet he's pissing himself now, in more ways than one.' Feeling a modicum of sympathy, she finally looked up.

"How far are we on that arson case?" she asked.

Startled, Kevin leaned forward. "Pardon?"

"The arson case," Carol repeated. "Flower shop on Grosner Lane. Two nights ago. Anything?"

"Oh. Uh, we're waiting to hear from the arson investigators before we proceed," Kevin answered.

She looked down. "I don't see any entries in this file since yesterday. Have you thought about calling them?"

"We… we were waiting for them to call us," Don stuttered.

Carol's head snapped up. "Well I suggest you call them. Get the ball rolling on this. I don't want it sitting around on someone's desk until it ends up at the bottom of a pile, never to be seen again."

"I'll get right on it, guv," Don promised.

"Good. How about the vandalism at Everton school?"

Kevin shuffled his feet. "Neighbours in the area reported seeing a group of boys, between the ages of twelve and sixteen." He held out his hands at the futility of finding the boys. "It didn't seem to be…"

"How's the weather in Sutherland today?" At last, the other shoe dropped.

"I knew it," Don muttered.

"Listen, guv," Kevin tried to explain, "it's been slow and I just thought…"

"Slow, yeah," Carol nodded and held up two files in her hand. "I see how slow it is. Two open cases right here and I'm not even trying very hard. Apparently, neither are you."

Kevin bristled. "Have you even looked at the Sutherland case?"

It was as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room. Don unconsciously took a step back.

Carol's voice was even and low, but had the edge of a sword. "I beg your pardon?" Kevin wilted. "That's all right," she went on, "I do believe I heard you. Let's see. Sutherland case- brunette; broke into the ground floor bedroom window; photo of the victim removed from the scene." All these described the Jeff Gibbons case, and she knew it. But then she got to the heart of the matter. "As of yet, no idea how the victim died; victim dismembered and put into a freezer. Letters and numbers with an unknown meaning scrawled on the wall in what could be the victim's blood, but we don't know."

"Okay, I'll concede there are differences," Kevin allowed, "but I've just got a feeling about this one. You've got to admit, the rest is pretty coincidental."

"Coincidental being the operative word, I would think. Plus the one fact we can't deny –Jeff Gibbons has been in jail for two years. Unless he's been having an out-of-body-experience…"

"Or he didn't do the others."

"Have you even looked at the Gibbons case?" Carol asked, but without any real malice. "Semen found at the scene. Gibbons skin cells found under the last vic's fingernails because he failed to pin her down while he smothered her. Gibbons did it."

Kevin sighed. "Then maybe it's a copycat."

Carol shook her head doubtfully. "The M.O might be the same, but there are too many discrepancies in the signature for it to be a copycat."

"You sound like Dr. Hill," Don remarked from the door.

She glanced over to him. "Are you still here, Don? I would have thought you'd be on the phone to those arson investigators."

"Yes, ma'am," he said and slipped out of the office, happy to be leaving relatively unscathed.

When Don was gone, Kevin turned to Carol. "Listen, guv, I'm sorry…"

"Go over my head like that again Kevin, and I'll have you in Traffic by the end of the day, do I make myself clear?"

"Very."

"Good." Her expression softened a bit. "Look, I understand you wanting to get your teeth into something more than an arson or kids defacing a building. There's no shame in ambition –it's what got you here in the first place. But in the future, at least let me know what the hell you're doing so when I get a call from our boss, or say, a DCI from another district, then at least I look like I know what's going on. And if I can save my ass, then I can do something about saving yours. Got it?"

Kevin smiled, grateful. "Got it. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Now go look like you're doing something. Oh, and Kevin?" He turned at the door. "Keep your eyes on that Sutherland case. If anything strikes a chord, for Chrissakes, let me know."

He nodded and left.

--

Tony opened his door and saw Carol, two paper bags held up and covering her face.

"Mmmmm," he said appreciatively as the aroma of curry wafted in his direction. "I don't know who you are, but you've brought food. Come in."

"You're so easy," Carol scolded as she stepped over the threshold.

He took the bags from her and she hung up her coat. "I can honestly say I've never been called that before."

Her smile grew into a laugh. "Well, I reserve the right to change my mind."

"Good idea," he agreed as he walked through his living room. "Be right back," he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

It gave her a moment to look around the room, which always seemed to be in some form of disarray. She could never tell if he was starting something, finishing something, or was in the middle of something. She was still looking for clues when he returned.

"I'm always reminded that you're a cop," he remarked.

"Oh?"

"Most people give a room the once-over. You have a tendency to give it the thrice-over."

"And I'm always reminded that you're a psychologist," she countered.

"Oh?"

"You're always examining the people examining the room."

"Touché." He held up plates. "Curry?"

--

"So did you clear your thoughts?" Carol asked once they sat down and began eating.

"Sorry?"

"When I left you, mouth agape in the chip shop, you mentioned you were going to walk back to the university; clear your thoughts."

"Oh, right. No. I ended up taking the bus. Looking at the people looking out the window."

"I see," she grinned. "Let me ask you –is this about you turning forty? I didn't think men went through that sort of thing."

"I'm not having a mid-life crisis, if that's what you mean!" he objected.

Her grin widened. "Good, because I just can't picture you behind the wheel of a sports car."

"Not funny." He ignored her laughter and took a sip of his drink. "It's more of a looking back," he tried to explain. "A game of trying to see what would be different in my life if I had chosen other paths."

"Like what?"

"Like, what if I wasn't a psychologist? What would my life have been like?"

Curious, Carol asked, "What would you have been if not a psychologist?"

Tony shrugged. "That's just it, I don't know. I can't imagine ever doing anything else. But I wonder if the passion hasn't waned over the years. I often feel the challenge isn't there like it used to be."

"You know why that is, don't you?" He tilted his head, puzzled. "It's because you're the best at what you do." She saw his attempt to counter her remark, but she stopped him. "No, now listen. This isn't me trying to bolster your self-esteem or to gratuitously pat you on the back. Look at the people around you. Look at your colleagues, your peers. Is there anyone whose opinion is valued more?"

"I wouldn't say I'm anyone's favourite, no."

She shook her head. "Don't confuse respect with admiration. I can respect you but I don't have to like you. You're just lucky I happen to do both."

He enjoyed the feeling for a moment before asking, "What was the question again?"

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Anyway," she continued, "it's natural that you might feel unchallenged. When you're at the top of your field, I would think that would happen. I believe that's the whole sentiment behind the term 'top of your field'. You can't get any higher."

"I suppose you could be right."

"Don't sound so surprised," she drawled. "Here's an idea," she suggested. "Set personal challenges now that you're lacking professional ones."

"Personal challenges?" he echoed. "What do you mean? And am I going to like this?"

"Well, I'm not going to recommend bungee jumping, if that's what you think!" She waited for his eyebrows to come back down. "Take up a hobby. Volunteer to coach a local boys' football team. Go on a sabbatical and travel around Europe." She ticked each point on a finger. Then she slyly added, "Go out on a date."

He choked out a cough. "How do you know I don't go out on dates?"

"Because you told me today that you haven't had a date in eig… four years."

He made a sad face. "Right, I had forgotten. Damn. Damn you and your vocal recall." He pretended to be displeased with her amusement. "And here I thought, after this afternoon, that you'd make a great teacher. Turns out you'd be a better shrink."

"You'll get the bill."

"In that case, perhaps I should work off my debt. How was your job today?"

She leaned back into the chair and groaned. "Oh, nothing worth mentioning, if you don't count Kevin and Don traipsing up to Sutherland for no other reason than Kevin had a 'feeling' about a case."

"Oh?" Tony leaned forward, curious. Then it occurred to him. "Is that what the phone call was about?"

Carol nodded. "DCI Saunders up in Sutherland phoned to inform me that he would promise not to send any of his inspectors down to Bradfield if I promised to not send any of mine up to Sutherland. Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about and the bastard knew it. He then smugly did me the 'courtesy' of bringing me up to date on the movements of one DI Geoffries and his partner in crime, Inspector Merrick."

"What in the world were they doing up in Sutherland?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "A recent murder up there came down the police wire this morning. There were some instances that reminded Kevin of a similar case."

"Unsolved?"

"No, that's just it," Carol said. "This case that Kevin remembered was solved over two years ago. DNA all over the place, no question who it was. Jeff Gibbons has been in prison ever since."

Tony frowned; then it came to him. "Mr. Freeze?"

"Yeah."

"So what's in this new case that got Kevin's attention?"

Carol briefly shared the two cases with him, revealing both the similarities and the differences. When she was finished, Tony agreed with her assessment. 

"The modus operandi is very nearly the same. Ground floor window, into the bedroom; an unprofessional eye might even stretch it and say the use of a cold stimulus is similar –ice cubes to freezers – but there are too many discrepancies in the signature for it to be the same man, even if he wasn't in jail."

"I know."

In his element, he continued, "Even a copycat killer seems unlikely due to these discrepancies."

"That's exactly what I told Kevin," Carol said.

"I've taught you well," he noted, feigning sadness. "I guess that means I'm no longer of any use to you."

She nudged his foot with her own. "Then I'll just have to come up with another use for you." Realizing the suggestiveness behind her comment, she wondered if her face was as red as his. She pushed herself up from the chair. "And on that awkward note, I should go."

He quickly stood and they were nearly nose to nose. "You could stay. If you want." He left the suggestion behind his own comment lingering for a moment before adding, "It wasn't awkward, Carol."

"No?"

"No." He locked eyes with hers. "You know what? I think I'm getting the hang of this whole 'personal challenge' bit." His voice remained neutral, but the gleam in his eyes told a different story. She slapped his arm, then took a page out of Tony's book.

"I guess that means I'm no longer of any use to you."

The gleam in his eyes remained. "Then I'll have to…"

Putting her finger to his lips, she stopped him. "Don't say it, or I'll never leave." Once she was sure he would remain silent, she stepped back. "And I have to get up early in the morning to make sure Kevin and Don don't get into any more mischief."

He walked her to the door and handed Carol her coat. They said their good-byes and he was watching her leave, when she got to the bottom of the steps and turned.

"You're a great psychologist, Tony," she told him. "Don't ever forget that." There was a pause before she added playfully, "Besides, if you hadn't chosen the path of psychology, you never would have met me."

--


	3. one3

"Nature or nurture?" Tony began the class. "The great debate. So which is it? Are we genetically destined to become the people we are, or is our growth as human beings shaped by the stimuli around us?" He glanced around the room until a hand rose. "Simon?"

"Yeah. Uh, I think it's definitely the influences around us. Look at the current life span of our species. We're living forty, fifty years longer than our ancestors. We have made adjustments in our society, in our way of living, to live better longer lives. That's not genetics that's progress. Looking at the negatives, the precedents are there that prove those who are abused as children are more inclined to grow up to be abusers themselves, particularly if they continue living in a social environment that doesn't allow them to rise above their means. Boys who grow up in a house where their mothers are beaten often grow up to be wife-beaters themselves. We see the influence of a cause and effect determining people's lives every day. Fear of my parents' wrath if I don't pass this course determines my efforts here."

The students laughed and Tony smiled. "So noted, Simon."

"Thank you, sir."

"Yes, Stephen?"

A dark haired student in the back spoke up. "I have to disagree. You can't deny the influence of genetics. Look at alcoholism, obesity, depression. Insurance companies are now doing genetic backgrounds before allowing people to sign policies. If my parents aren't musically inclined, I'm never going to be a world class pianist."

"Perhaps not, Tony agreed, "but that doesn't mean you can't play the piano. And how do you explain child prodigies?"

Stephen shrugged. "Flukes. Anomalies. Every rule has the exception."

Tony agreed again. "Of course. For instance, case studies have shown that no amount of treatment can rehabilitate a pedophile. That being said, I'd like to think if we're psychologically damaged in some way, that we can all be helped."

"So you lean towards the nurture end of the debate, Dr. Hill?" another student asked.

"To a large degree, yes."

"Be honest, Dr. Hill. Is your stance on this just an attempt to justify your profession as a psychologist?" All eyes went to Stephen and a low murmur of surprise went through the room.

Tony held up a hand to quiet them. "No, that's a very good question." He sat on the edge of his desk before continuing, "I suppose my profession does lend itself to any decision I make on this subject. Though there, in that very admission is further support of my stance- my profession, not my genetics influenced my decision." He smiled at the irony as did several others. "But I do think I can teach an old dog new tricks."

"But left to its own devices, it's still a dog. It will do what it's going to do," the student argued. "There have been cases of twins separated at birth, adopted by two separate families of differing backgrounds, only to find out years later that they have the same taste in women, wear their hair the same way, use the same toothpaste. You're going to be whoever you're going to be."

"So I was destined to be a psychologist?"

"Yeah."

"And you were destined to get a C in this course?"

"If that's what I'm supposed to get."

"And what is poor Simon's fate?"

Stephen looked over to his peer. "I don't know, but if Simon doesn't pass this course, his parents have no one to blame but themselves."

Once again, the room broke out into laughter.

"Can you write that on my final report, Dr. Hill?" Simon asked.

"I'll try to remember," he answered. Turning back to Stephen, Tony asked, "So what is your view on the prison system?"

"What do you mean?"

"Should we just let all the criminals free, or adopt the death penalty and get rid of them all?"

"Neither," he said. "I think taking away someone's freedom is sufficient punishment."

"Well, let's forget for a moment that the basis of prison is rehabilitation, not permanent incarceration. You've just told me that people are going to be whoever they're going to be. Once a murderer, always a murderer. Once a rapist, always a rapist. If that's the case, is there any point in incarcerating them?"

A girl in the front spoke up. "Protects the public."

"But if Stephen's theory is true, aren't we just delaying the inevitable? Won't he just kill again once he's out? And why doesn't he kill in prison? On the whole, prison homicide is quite uncommon."

"Controlled environment," Simon answered. "Suppressed stimuli."

"Very good. You'll pass this course yet. Stephen, have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?"

He smirked. "Maybe."

"Safe to say more than one?"

"Yeah."

"Well then, we need to permanently ban you from ever driving a vehicle again. You're predisposed to be a speed demon!"

He shook his head. "I know what you're getting at, but that's different."

"Oh? How so?"

"It's…" he paused. Several moments passed, yet Tony waited. "It just is."

"Be honest, Stephen. Is your waffling stance on this just an attempt to justify your profession as a vehicular law breaker?"

The class erupted into hoots and hollers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a hand go up. Pointing in the student's direction, Tony asked, "Yes, Owen?"

"I think it's a combination of both of those influences," he stated. "I think we are given a genetic map to direct us. And I think the people and events that come into our lives influence who we are. But ultimately, I don't think we can or should use either as an excuse for the people we've become. We're given tools at birth and throughout our lives to use or discard as we see fit. At the end of the day, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Or at least, we shouldn't."

The class became silent and Tony gave the young man an appreciative nod. "Well done, Owen. Well done. Are you passing this class?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

"Oh, no worries," he grinned. "My parents are psychologists. I'm destined to pass."

Tony groaned.

--

_On his way home from work, he stopped at the newsagents and could barely conceal his delight as paid for the newspaper._

**MORNING HORROR!  
Sutherland wakes up to murder, dismemberment**

He hurried back to his car and separated himself from the outside world. Surrounded by text was a lone picture of the crime scene. It was of the wall that bore his scrawled "E-26, G-24". He slowly trailed his fingertips across the slightly raised ink and closed his eyes as he recalled the moment. Despite the latex gloves, the warmth of her blood had seeped into his bones and made him giddy. He wasn't thrilled about dismembering the body, but it was the only way he could get her into that damn storage freezer she had. He remembered being angry; very angry that the evening hadn't gone the way he had plotted it out in his mind. Poor planning on the part of other people had nearly foiled his own careful preparation. But then he remembered he would have to get a reasonable amount of blood out of her anyway, in order to leave his message, so there was a silver lining to everything.

A sharp rap on his window startled him out of his reverie. He looked to his right and saw a scowling man gesturing for him to roll down his window.

"Oi! You gonna be here all night, mate, or are you gonna let me have your spot already?"

He was about to get out of the car and set the him straight, but decided against it. Drawing attention to himself was the last think he needed right now. Instead, he rolled up the window, flipped the man the bird, and peeled out of the space.

No, he would not be there all night. He had other things to do.

--

"Mondays," Carol groaned. 

Despite the dressing-down she had given Kevin last week, she had to admit he was right; things were bloody slow. One of the perks that came with a position such as Detective Chief Inspector was the ability to delegate cases to those on the totem pole beneath her. In its best form, it allowed her to lighten her workload by spreading it out amongst the eager-to-advance cops under her authority. At its worst… well, were days like this- where her officers were efficiently handling the workload and she was left with the administrative work she loathed. She would have gone out into the general office area to see if there was something she could do to help, but she had been out there three times already this morning. Her first appearance had been met with a welcome; the second with mild annoyance; the third with veiled irritation.

Carol sighed. 'I wonder what Tony's doing for lunch?' She was just reaching for the phone when Kevin knocked on the door and poked his head around the corner.

"Got a minute, guv?"

She put the receiver down and waved him in. "What's up, Kev?"

Standing in front of her desk, he began, "For starters, that flower shop arson? Looks like an insurance fraud. Arson investigators found the primary. Traces of petrol and a cigarette wedged into the flap of a book of matches. You light the cigarette, then when it burns down, it lights the matches…"

"Yes, Kevin," she interrupted, "I'm aware of that trick."

"Right. Sorry. Anyway, there was some financial difficulty with the owner of the shop, and the insurance was quite high, so…"

"Good job, Kevin."

He smiled. "Actually, you should thank Don. Pardon the expression, but I think you lit a fire under him last week."

"Good," Carol replied, not without humour. More serious now, she added, "And what about you, Kevin?"

"Everton School was broken into on the weekend. I'm working with the officers who were there and seeing if there's a connection with our vandals."

"Great. Keep at it." She expected Kevin to leave, but he didn't move. "Anything else?"

He held up a piece of paper. "This came in from Sutherland Saturday morning."

She leaned forward and took it from him. The office was quiet as she scanned the sheet.

"Another one?" she whispered.

"Looks like it," Kevin agreed. "Odd, though. No dismemberment. Throat was cut instead."

"Maybe he was interrupted this time?"

He shook his head. "Still had time to leave his code."

"Yeah. Different this time, though, isn't it? 'E-26, G-25', not 24 like last time."

"What do you think it means?"

Carol pressed her lips together and shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted, "and for now, it's not up to us to find out what it means, Kev."

"I know. You said to keep you up to date, so that's what I'm doing."

"Okay," she smiled, "consider me up to date."

"There's more. Word has it he left a little bit of a… mess at the first scene."

"Semen?"

"Yeah."

"The vic…"

"No," Kevin said before Carol could go down that road. "Outside. A little…" he mimicked a masturbation gesture, "before he went in."

"Thank you for that lovely image, Kev."

He laughed. "Sorry. Anyway, they're pressing for a quick DNA result early this week. We'll see what happens after that."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"That's it."

"Right. Well, in the meantime, let's keep on with our own problems, as mundane as they may seem. If I ever have to speak to DCI Samuels again, I want to make sure it's worth the effort."

"Understood, guv. And maybe, in the meantime, you could ask Dr. Hill what he thinks of it."

"Kevin…" Carol warned in a soft growl.

"I'll have that Everton case wrapped up by the end of the day."

"You'd better. And close the door behind you."

When he'd gone, Carol reached for the phone.

--

"Hello my friend, we meet again," Tony said as he looked at the blank white board in the conference room of the police station. 

"What's your schedule like this afternoon? Are you busy?" Carol had asked him when she called twenty minutes earlier.

"Only trying to postulate which one of my students is the potential serial killer," he replied. "Besides, why are you asking me? I thought you were a detective?"

Her laughter ran down the line. "I'll ignore your last comment, and when you're done with the first, what do you think of coming down to the station and tossing some theories about regarding a serial killer who's already developed? There's been a second killing in Sutherland."

"I'll be down as soon as I can," he said.

Now he stood in front of the blank board, its surface waiting to be filled with scribbles and hidden clues. He felt a marker being placed in his hand, and he turned to see Carol standing beside him.

"Ready to get to work?" she asked.

He sighed dramatically. "I haven't even had time to take off my jacket and you're putting me to work."

Carol stepped behind him and removed his coat. She draped it over a nearby chair then turned back to Tony. He wasn't about to let her off the hook that easily.

"No coffee?"

Barely concealing a smirk, she reached for the cup on the desk beside him. Holding up the steaming mug, she raised an eyebrow. "Anything else, my liege?"

He frowned, unable to find fault in her efficiency. "I suppose not." He took the cup from her and hazarded a taste. "So what is it… mmmm, this is very good, Carol… what is it you want me to do?"

"Well, you know about the first murder. This morning we got word that there had been another murder over the weekend. Brunette, ground floor entry into the bedroom. Shoved her into a freezer, but for whatever reason, no dismemberment. Another slight change was the message he left on the wall. In the victim's blood, same as the first."

As Carol spoke of the murder, several of her officers came into the room and sat in various spots around the office.

"I suppose I could take some solace in knowing you have nothing better to do with your time," Tony commented as they filed in. Back to Carol, he asked, "What was the message this time?"

" 'E-26, G-25'," she responded.

Tony walked up to the white board and uncapped his marker. He quickly divided the board into four vertical columns. At the top of each, he titled them, #1, #2, #3, #4.

"There've only been two murders," Don corrected.

Without turning around, Tony said, "For now. There will be more if we don't catch him."

Under #1, he made a list of what they knew, and did the same under #2. Stepping back, he pointed to the board.

"What's different?"

"Dismemberment is missing from the second murder," Paula offered.

Tony looked at the young policewoman and nodded. "Correct. Which means dismemberment is not a signature of these crimes. It's not the axis of these murders. And yet…" he looked at the board again, "the freezer seems important. He went to the trouble of dismembering the first victim in order for her to fit the freezer, therefore also fitting his signature." He circled 'freezer' several times.

"What about his message?" Carol asked.

"Although it's also different from the first murder, it isn't absent. Whatever this message means to him is also very important."

"But what does it mean?"

"Taking it from the first murder, I would have said it was a word puzzle or some kind of map reference. However, based on the fact that it's different in the second murder –and notice only one number is different –I would say it's some sort of score-card. E-26, G-25. I don't think the first murder was the first at all. This is an advancement from the first number; from 24 to 25. G, whoever that is, has "scored" again; killed again."

A hush went around the room as they all slowly drew the same conclusion.

"But… but if what you're saying is true, if this is some sort of killing score-card, that would mean there are twenty three other murders we don't know about. Not to mention the twenty six done by this E person," Carol said aloud.

"If that's what it's meant to represent, then yes," Tony replied.

"Fifty one murders," Kevin whispered, dumbfounded.

Paula spoke for everyone, "Christ."

"That can't be right," Kevin protested. "I think we'd know about fifty one unsolved murders."

"Twenty three," Tony corrected, repeating Carol's earlier count. "You already know about twenty six; Jeff Gibbons is serving his time for them. Look at the signature similarities- E is obviously Jeff Gibbons. This killer in Sutherland has already committed two you know of, so you have G-25 minus two. Twenty-three."

"Still, that's twenty three murders," Paula said, stunned.

Tony held out his hands as if to say, 'I'm just the messenger.'

"And there's absolutely no way Jeff Gibbons could have done them?" Kevin pressed.

"The other twenty three? Who knows? Until you find out where and when those murders took place, it's impossible to determine. If you want to know if Gibbons committed the last two murders, then my answer is no." He looked around the room at the expectant faces. "Look, there are certain characteristics in those twenty six murders that are consistent throughout; he smothered them with his hand and he put them in a bathtub full of ice."

"And they were brunette," Don added.

Tony shook his head. "That was his M.O, not his signature. Gibbons himself admitted the only reason his victims were all brunettes was because the first three coincidentally were dark-haired. It was only when he read the media stories that he latched on to the brunette angle. Had the press not given that bit of information so much attention, Gibbons would have carried on, regardless of hair colour. No, he smothered them with his hand because he liked the power it gave him: to look into the eyes of his victims as they died. And the ice was his attempt to confuse the police and pathologist regarding time of death. Hand and ice in the bath; that was his signature and he didn't deviate from it once in those twenty-six murders. Not once." He pointed back to the board. "These last two murders are entirely different in signature. Yes, he still smothered them with his hand, but he put them in a freezer. He dismembered one victim in order to stay in line with the signature."

"It's not a big step from ice to freezer, though," Paula remarked. "I mean, it's not like we're comparing someone who covers them in ice and someone who encases them in cement and throws them in the Thames."

"But we might as well be, Paula. When we're talking about signatures, any deviation, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to us, is impossible to ignore. It would be like seeing a vegetarian at a carvery. The signature identifies the killer. One killer isn't going to have two signatures."

"So it's definitely not Jeff Gibbons?" Carol posed, though she knew his answer.

"Nope. Not a chance. And that's overlooking the impossibility of him being in two places at once. Not your man. I'd stake my reputation on it. Whatever that's worth."

Carol smiled and the rest of the room couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay," Kevin conceded. "Where do we go from here?"

Tony shrugged. "That's your job, not mine."

"Kev, any word on the DNA?" Carol asked.

"Not yet. Tomorrow if we're lucky, I should think."

Carol addressed the group. "Right. Kevin, Don, Liam. Do some research, make some inquiries. See if there have been any unsolved murders in the last five years. Check missing persons while you're at it. He may have started that route before refining his technique. How's your French, Liam?"

"Comme ci, comme ça," the junior officer said.

"Bien," Carol answered. "I think we should stretch our inquiries outside of Britain. Maybe there's a reason we're unaware of this killer's priors."

Don nodded. "He might not have started here."

"Exactly. Paula, just to dot our i's and cross our t's, phone Bradfield Prison. Make sure Jeff Gibbons was were he was supposed to be on the nights of the murders."

"Should we contact DCI Samuels?" Kevin asked.

"What for?" Carol replied in return. "Right now, for all we know, this has nothing to do with the murders in Sutherland. I'm not getting into a pissing contest with him over this, and until we're sure, there's no sense muddying the waters any more than necessary. And if this doesn't end up being some kind of killing scorecard, it might have absolutely nothing to do with anything." She gave an apologetic look towards Tony.

His mouth curved into a wry smile of understanding. "I'd be more than happy to be wrong about this, believe me."

"In the meantime," she carried on, "we still have our regular duties to perform. Whatever it is you're working on, though it may not be nearly as interesting, also needs to get done. How's the Everton case, Kevin?"

"We were tipped off about a gang of boys from the east end. Uniform are trying to round them up, and the parents. Once that's sorted, we've got some of the neighbours lined up to come in and see if they can identify any of the boys."

"Good job. Right then, that's it. If anyone comes across anything that raises a red flag, come and see me."

As the group filed out, Tony reached for his jacket. She waited until he had shrugged it on before placing a hand on his arm.

"You free later?"

"Of course."

"How do you feel about dropping by my place? Say around six?"

He pretended to give it some thought before replying, "Yeah."

She slapped his shoulder. "Go on. I'll see you later."

--

He felt something warm and soft tickle across his cheek. In his dreamy haze, he tried to brush it away, and when it didn't return, he slipped back under the welcoming blanket of sleep. Peace was almost reached when a rough wet sensation scraped across his chin. Tony's eyes snapped open and he found himself looking into a pair of attentive green eyes.

"Nelson," Tony groaned and tried to roll over in an attempt to get the cat off his chest, but Nelson would have none of it. The feline held fast with his claws and licked Tony's chin again.

"All right, all right," he surrendered, "I'm awake." It was then that he realized he was awake in someone else's house. Nelson. Carol. He quickly looked to either side discovered he was on the couch. That was one item of panic crossed off the list. At some point, Carol had obviously covered him up, because he was quite content under a soft blanket. Another small wave of panic washed over Tony, and he slowly lifted the edge of the blanket to check underneath.

"You're not naked, if that's what you're worried about."

"Jesus!" Tony exclaimed, startled by Carol's appearance in the doorway.

"Good morning to you, too," she smirked as she set a cup on the table beside him and sat in an opposite chair with her own mug. She watched Tony's attempt to surreptitiously gather clues from his environment, in order to piece together what had happened.

"It was about nine o'clock and I was talking to my brother on the phone," she said, offering him some pieces. "We talked longer than I had planned and when I came back into the room, you were slouched in the most uncomfortable position I've ever seen, sleeping."

Tony closed his eyes, remembering it now. "Ah, yes."

"I took off your tie, but I thought I'd better… the rest… anyway," she stumbled.

"How is Michael?"

Thankful to be pursuing another topic, Carol replied, "He's good. I think we'll be hearing wedding bells soon."

"Lucy?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Good for them," he said honestly. He sat up and held on to Nelson so he wouldn't fall on to the floor. "Did you send this hairy alarm clock to wake me?" His annoyance was belied by his affectionate petting.

Carol laughed. "No. He does whatever he likes. Slept at your feet all night, by the way. Would not come to bed with me. Traitor."

As if knowing that last comment was directed at him, Nelson jumped off Tony's lap and padded over to Carol.

"Oh, too late now, mister," she chastised, but the cat was unfazed. He jumped onto her lap, stretched luxuriously, then curled up.

Stretching out his legs in a less-than-feline-like manner, Tony reached for his coffee and asked, "What were we talking about before I so rudely nodded off?"

Carol tilted her head. "Nature versus nurture, I believe."

"My topics are so boring they even put me to sleep. No wonder I don't get invited over very often."

"Really?" she asked. Although she recognized his humour when she heard it, she had to admit she had never really given much thought towards how many times he had been over. A quick tally in her head gave credence to his comment. "Would you like me to invite you over more?" She recognized the suggestiveness of her question, but instead of being embarrassed, she smirked, "Nelson obviously adores you."

Tony's smile was full of warmth, responding not only to her humour, but her offer as well. He scowled at the cat curled up happily on Carol's lap. "I'm nothing more than another warm body for that cat to cozy up to."

Carol snorted. "Well, you're the only other warm body that steps through that door." Seeing Tony's eyebrows flashed upwards in query and surprise she shifted the subject. "Are you hungry?"

He looked around for a clock. "What time is it?"

She turned her wrist over. "Ten past eight."

He shook his head and stood up. As the blanket fell, he instinctively looked down. Carol burst into laughter. "What, you didn't believe me?"

"Stop laughing. You're going to wake up poor Nelson."

"Are you hungry?" she repeated.

"No," he answered. Rubbing his hands over his face, he said, "I should get home. I need to change my clothes and pick up some books for the class today."

"Okay." She got up slowly, doing everything she could to not wake up the cat. Gently placing him on the seat, she turned to see Tony neatly folding up the blanket and draping it across the arm of the couch. "Jacket's near the door," she offered when she realized why he was looking around the room.

"Oh, right."

As she followed him to the door, she practiced a few lines in her head. She didn't know what was more awkward –the morning after, or the morning after nothing had happened. She was saved any discomfort when she saw his smile.

"Thanks for putting me up," he said.

"Don't you mean putting up with you?" she joked.

"That, too," he went along.

"Listen, you can come over whenever you want, you know." She waited for him to nod his understanding before she changed tracks again. "If that DNA test comes back today, I'll call you."

He unlocked the door and turned the handle. "Call me anyway," he asked.

--


	4. one4

"Morning, Don," Carol said as she walked into the office.

"Morning, guv," he replied, looking up from his paper. "Paula just put the coffee on. "Better get it while you can."

She smiled. "Thanks."

As she poured herself a cup, she glanced over. "How are things going on that multiple murder case? Did you dig anything up?"

Don frowned and shook his head. "I've been checking the local files and unsolved cases. Nothing of the magnitude we're talking about."

"Anything from our foreign inquiries?"

"That was Liam and Kevin's job. I haven't heard anything from them, but DI Geoffries was in his office when I got here this morning, so who knows what he's got his teeth into." He came over to top up his coffee.

"With any luck, it will be that DNA test."

"Yeah."

She noticed the slight hesitation in his voice. "What is it, Don?"

"Hmmm? Oh, nothing. Nothing about this case, I mean." She waited for more. "Uh, you and Dr. Hill…"

"Yes?" she prodded.

"It's just… it's nice to see you two close," he stammered, embarrassed. 

She saved him further embarrassment by not laughing out loud. 'It must have taken him days just to get that much out,' she thought of the big man and his rare foray into anyone's personal life, let alone hers. She softly tapped his mug with hers.

"Thank you, Don."

"Uh, yeah. Listen, I should, uh…" he gestured back to his desk.

"Get back to it."

He nodded.

"Let me know if you get anything. Oh, and have Liam stop by my office once he gets in."

"Sure thing, guv," Don said, back to business.

--

"A watched pot never boils, Kev," Carol said as she stood in his doorway.

The young man looked up. "Scientifically, that's not true," he answered. "A pot on a hot stove will always boil, regardless of whether or not it's being watched."

"Remind me never to waste a perfectly good expression on you again," she sighed. "I take it you're waiting for a call on that DNA test?"

"Yep."

"Did Liam get anything yesterday?"

"Nothing that raised any alarms. Hundreds of open cases on missing persons, but nothing that gave any indication that they were connected somehow. I was able to track down a contact number for the Violent Crimes office in Berlin, but the man I was told to speak with wasn't in. So it's a waiting game." He looked at his watch. "They're an hour ahead so hopefully, I'll hear something from him sooner rather than later."

"Good," Carol said. "If and when that DNA test…" She was interrupted by the soft ring of her mobile. "Carol Jordan. Good morning, DCI Samuels." She caught Kevin's look of surprise. "What? You're kidding. That's im… hold on." Snapping her fingers to make sure Kevin was watching, she turned back into the general office, with Kevin close behind her. With a quick gesture across her throat, she silenced the entire office. Intrigued, several officers gathered around her as she stood by the fax machine. The slow whirring of the printer was the only noise. Slowly but surely the paper slid its way out of the machine.

"Yes, I'm getting it right now," Carol said. A quick scan verified what DCI Samuels had already revealed. She turned away as others crowded around to read it. A murmur rippled through the group. "Shit," Carol whispered. She ran a hand through her hair and composed herself. "And what exactly is it you'd like from me, DCI Samuels?"

"My boss has already spoken with yours, DCI Jordan," came the displeased reply. "It seems we're to work on this together."

"In what capacity? And why?"

"Why? Well because apparently you sent the wrong man to prison."

Carol bit her tongue, then continued calmly, "Let's forget for a moment the banality of that statement –that the man I arrested couldn't be falsely imprisoned and commit two murders at the same time. If that is his DNA you discovered."

"It is," he huffed, "unless you want to go against the billion-to-one odds on DNA matching. It was his DNA we found at the first murder."

Carol wondered if now was the time to drop Tony's theory on him. She was saved the choice when he spoke again. "As for our working relationship, there should be no conflict of jurisdiction. You deal with Jeff Gibbons down there and let us deal with this nut job up here."

"I thought they were one and the same?"

"Listen, I don't like this any more than you do, but what has to be done has to be done. I'll concede your point –Jeff Gibbons couldn't possibly have committed the two murders up here. But by the same token, it is his DNA. So how did it get up here to the scenes? You find that out and we can take it from there."

'Oh, thank you,' Carol nearly muttered aloud. Instead, she flatly replied, "Fine. We'll have someone talk to Gibbons today and get back to you." She didn't wait for his response before hanging up.

When she turned, all eyes were on her.

"How much of that did you get?" she sighed.

"Enough to know this is severely screwed up," Don marveled. 

"So it really is Jeff Gibbons' DNA?" Paula asked.

"So it seems."

"There goes Dr. Hill's reputation," Kevin said.

--

"I'm telling you Carol, it's not him," Tony stated emphatically.

Kevin scratched a spot behind his ear. "So you're saying DNA is wrong."

"No, not at all. But what I'm saying is, Jeff Gibbons didn't leave it there himself."

Carol looked at Paula.

"I called over like you asked," she informed her boss. "Dr. Hill's right. Jeff Gibbons hasn't left the walls of Bradfield Prison since he was put there three years ago."

Frustrated, Don looked around the room. "Then somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on. If it's his DNA, but he didn't leave it there himself… I'm afraid I'm having a hard time keeping up."

Tony leaned on the back of a chair. "Does Gibbons have visitors? Does he have a girlfriend? Is he allowed conjugal visits?"

As was regularly becoming the case, Carol quickly deciphered his line of thinking. She was none too thrilled about the hypothesis.

"Are you saying, as a result of a conjugal visit, Gibbons' girlfriend…" she waited, hoping someone would pick up her speculation. When none did, she joylessly continued, "… came into the possession of Gibbons'… DNA?"

The room lit up as light bulbs went on over everyone's head.

Don was the first to speak. "So you're saying, they did the deed, and she, what? Kept the condom?"

"And imagine, that's the best case scenario," Kevin remarked.

A collective groan of disgust went throughout the room, except for Tony who shook his head in amazement.

"You, who see the worst of humanity every day of your lives, repulsed by something that is ultimately the most natural act between two human beings."

"We all have our issues," Carol replied, a grimace still on her face.

"Besides," Don defended, "I've got no problem with the act. It's what she did after it that's got me. That's anything but natural."

Carol held up a hand. "Okay, let's say we go with this, regardless of our personal reaction. However we may feel, it is a plausible explanation. The bottom line is, if Gibbons' is in jail, and his DNA is at the scene, logic says it had to get there somehow. So, let's look at this angle for a bit. If it is a girlfriend, does that fit in with the murders? Could she have committed them and if so, why?"

"Although somewhat difficult, it wouldn't be impossible for a woman to smother another woman, particularly if the killer is in a position of leverage."

"Like on top of the victim," Paula said.

"Exactly. Though the dismemberment throws me off," Tony admitted. "Female serial killers are a rare breed. And violent female serial killers are almost an aberration. Most are very quick. A gun or a knife. Perhaps suffocation. But dismemberment?" Tony shook his head. "It takes time. And a lot of strength. Cutting through limbs is a man's job, in every sense."

"And then we have to ask, why?" Carol said. "Why kill these two women and why leave Gibbons' DNA at the scene? If they were a killing couple, wouldn't we see some sort of escalation in the murders?"

"Absolutely," Tony agreed.

She rubbed her temple. "And she couldn't possibly think it would have any bearing on his current sentence."

"And even if it did, he'd just be nicked for these murders," Kevin added.

"Makes no sense," Paula said.

Don emitted a humourless laugh. "There's our case in a nutshell."

"What about these other murders?" Tony asked.

"Still waiting on the Germans to get back to me," Kevin answered, "but other than that, we're coming up empty."

Carol sighed. "Well, keep at it. In the meantime, see if Gibbons has had any visitors since he's been locked up. See if you can track them down, make sure everyone's accounted for. If he's got a girlfriend, bring her in."

Kevin nodded. "And what'll you be doing, guv?"

She looked over to Tony. "The doctor and I are going to jail."

--

The small drab room inside was just as bleak as the outside, Tony thought glumly. If the flat green paint was meant to be a calming influence, it was doing its job, he supposed; it certainly wasn't adding any life to the place. A single plastic table was bolted down in the center of the room, and its matching chairs carefully short-chained to its legs. It wouldn't do to give anyone any ideas. The only joy Tony could glean from the place was from Carol's presence. He must have been staring because she shot him a look.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing." He shook his head and tried to explain. "I don't do well in these kinds of buildings, with all the life sucked out of them. Every young delinquent should be made to spend a weekend here. I can't imagine a more effective incentive to not get sent here."

"It could use a bit of colour," Carol admitted.

Before they could say any more, a large figure stepped in the doorframe. As he entered the room, the shuffling feet of a prisoner followed behind. The officer stepped aside and not-so-gently pushed the handcuffed man into one of the chairs.

"Dr. Hill, DCI Jordan, prisoner #6521478," the officer introduced, then took his post against the wall.

"You can call me 'Jeff'," the prisoner said with a smile. His short black hair partially framed a hard, angular face. The file said he was thirty-two, but he looked closer to forty-two. He craned around to look at his cuffed hands. "I'd offer you a handshake, but…" Neither Tony nor Carol bothered to respond. He looked at Tony with a menacing black gaze. "Scared?"

Tony didn't blink. Instead, he sat back in his chair and adopted an open, casual pose. "Why would I be scared? I'm not your type, Jeff."

Gibbons' gaze slid over to Carol.

"And I'm not brunette," she said.

His laugh was genuine and he shrugged. "No?" His eyes traveled over her. "That's a shame." He leaned back and attempted to mirror Tony's pose. "So to what do I owe this pleasure?" He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow, as if divining the answer. "Oh, wait. I know, I know. It's something about…" his eyes opened, "my DNA found at a crime scene."

Carol didn't balk. "You're well-informed, Mr. Gibbons."

"My lawyer's trying to figure out how I could be in two places at once."

"So are we," Tony said.

Gibbons shrugged. "Magic, I guess."

"Not an accomplice?" Carol asked.

"An accomplice? And here I thought you'd try to pin those two murders on me."

"Well, it's as you said, Jeff, you can't be in two places at once. But your DNA can," Tony replied.

The killer scowled. "How's that?" Leaning forward, his eyes revealed an honest attempt to find the answer. When the pieces clicked into place, he began laughing. He rested his forehead on the table and laughed. When he was finished, he propped his chin on the flat surface. "Oh, that's a good one. You think I what? Wanked into a bottle and sent it off to my mysterious accomplice so he could plant it at the scene? Is that it? And the reasoning is what again?"

"Pad your murder total? Make yourself look more heinous than you are," Carol offered.

He chuckled unsmilingly. "Do you know who I am, DCI Jordan? I will go down as one of England's greatest serial killers."

"Well, one of the most prolific, perhaps," Tony corrected. "Besides, someone's hot on your heels now."

"Only one more to catch up," Carol noted.

"And I wish him the best of luck. But let me assure you, when I did those murders, it was me and me alone." He flashed another self-important smile. "There'll be no hangers-on when my story gets written."

"Is that all it was about, Jeff?" Tony asked. "Glory? Fame? It had nothing to do with your hatred of women? The need to overcompensate for whatever inadequacies you had?"

The chair scraped back against the floor as Gibbons stood up. The officer against the wall looked on, alert and ready. Ignoring him as well as Tony's comment, Gibbons predicted, "You'll never catch him, you know."

Carol gave him a hard gaze of her own. "We caught you, didn't we?"

Gibbons conceded the point with a shrug. "True. But he's not me. Not quite."

There was something in Gibbons' phrasing that caught Tony off-guard, but any attempt to question him further was thwarted when Gibbons stood up. Turning to the officer, he announced, "It's almost lunch, and it's shepherd's pie today. My favourite."

--

Carol's hands tightened around the steering wheel. "Well, that was a productive visit," she said facetiously.

Tony shook his head. "On the contrary, it was very productive. He knows who it is, Carol. He didn't come right out and say it, but it was in the way he said things. And his parting remark. 'But he's not me. Not quite'."

"What does it mean?"

He held out his hands. "I don't know. But whatever it means, it's important."

Carol's mobile rang, and she glanced down to pick it up. "Carol Jordan." The voice on the other end identified himself and gave his purpose for calling. "Right," she said. "We're on our way right now." Shutting off the phone, she looked over at Tony. 'That was Kevin. They've pulled Jeff Gibbons' ex-girlfriend in."

--


	5. one5

"Here you go, Mrs. Gibbons," Kevin said as he handed the cookie to the young boy sitting on his mother's lap.

"Montgomery," the woman corrected. To her son, she said, "Say thank you, Sean."

"Thank you," he repeated dutifully.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" she asked Kevin.

"Sorry," he apologized, "best leave it until DCI Jordan arrives." As if on cue, Carol turned the corner, with Tony in tow. Kevin excused himself from the woman and her son and approached Carol.

"We brought her in about half an hour ago," he said by way of welcome and handed her a file. "We did a check on the visitors' log at Bradfield Prison for one Mr. Jeff Gibbons. He's had four visitors during his stay- his lawyer, his mother, a vicar, and her," he said, gesturing to the woman in the chair behind him.

Carol skimmed through the file. "Linda Montgomery." She looked over at the woman whose attention was focused on the young boy on her lap. Carol wondered what kind of life this woman led. Her clothes were neat and sensible, and she looked like she took the time to present a successful façade to the world. But her hands gave her away- though the nails were short and neat, they bore no polish and all the signs of being working hands. Carol looked down at the file again. "She hasn't visited him very often."

"No," he agreed, "but three times in the last month."

"Alibi for the nights of the murders?"

"I thought I'd hold off any questioning until you got here."

"Who's the boy?" Tony asked.

"Sean Jacob Gibbons, though his mother prefers he go by 'Montgomery'. Age four, or so he indicated with his fingers," Kevin grinned.

"Bloody hell," Carol whispered.

"Interesting," was all Tony said.

The trio walked over to Linda and her son.

"Ms. Montgomery, I'm DCI Carol Jordan." She held out her hand, which the other woman shook.

"What's this about?"

Carol sat in an opposite chair and Tony sat off to the side. Kevin chose to lean against a nearby filing cabinet.

'No point beating around the bush,' Carol thought. Out loud, she said, "To be honest, we'd like to talk to you about Jeff Gibbons."

Linda's face clouded over. "He has nothing to do with my life and I have nothing to do with his."

"But you have visited him three times in the past month," Carol noted.

The woman let out a humourless laugh. "Yeah, to get him to stop trying to contact me and my son."

Alarmed at his mother's tone, the young boy tried to squirm out of his mother's lap. "Stay here, Sean," she commanded, to no avail. In a flash, his feet were on the floor and he stood in front of Tony.

"Hi," the young boy said.

Tony leaned his arms on his knees. "Hi," he parroted.

"I'm Sean Jacob Montgomery and I'm four," he proudly announced as the other three adults watched the scene unfold.

"I'm Tony Valentine Hill, and I'm… not four," he returned. He looked into the young boy's eyes, so curious, so inquisitive, so willing to explore the world. Recalling his class's debate, he wondered what kind of world this young boy would live in, having the blueprint of a serial killer running through his genes. "I like your shirt."

"Manchester!" Sean crowed. He quickly swiveled at his waist to flash the back to Tony, then looked at him again. "Beckham!"

"Oh, dear lord," Tony groaned and made an exaggerated face. Sean giggled. "I'm going to a football match soon," Tony informed the boy.

"Beckham!"

"No. Shearer. He plays for Newcastle. What do you think?"

"Newcastle!"

"My thoughts exactly." Tony looked at Carol, who was looking back with a grin. He glanced at the boy's mother, then back at Carol. The slow shake of his head told her everything. 'Not the one, Carol', he silently said. Spotting a newspaper on the nearby vacant desk of Don, Tony looked down at Sean. "What do you say we go over there and read the scores of the football matches. We'll see how your Beckham performed."

Grateful to have the boy out of earshot, Carol's focus returned to Linda. "I can't help but ask, Ms. Montgomery, but how could you…" Faltering, she stopped.

"How could I live with a man who killed all those women?" Linda finished for her, cautiously taking a look at her son, who was contently sitting on Don's desk, listening to Tony read out scores. "I had no idea, and that's the God's truth. He liked it… rough in bed, but I didn't, so after trying forever to get me into it, he suddenly stopped. I thought it was just because he was tired of hearing me say no." She sighed and brought up a shaky hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "And then, I got pregnant with Sean." Carol was sure that was the first smile she had seen from Linda since she arrived. "Then I had something else to pay attention to. So did he, I suppose. When I first heard what he did, I was numb; just sick; I wanted to die. I kept thinking there must've been something, some clue I missed that could have saved some of those women."

In a surprising show of sympathy, Kevin stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "There was nothing you could have done, nothing at all." He tipped his head in Sean's direction. "Your attention was right were it should have been; with your pregnancy and with your son."

Linda sniffled. "Thank you."

"I think we're done here, Ms. Montgomery. Thank you for coming down," Carol said. The two women stood up. "If I can ask you one more question?"

"Sure."

"Do you know of anyone Jeff might have kept in contact with while he's been in prison?"

She looked away for a moment, giving it some thought. "His mother, of course. Maybe his brother, Jacob."

"A brother?" Kevin queried, interested.

"Yeah. Jacob…" she struggled to remember the rest. "Blakemore? Blackmore? They were adopted when they were less than a year old. Different families. Jeff had no idea until about five years ago. I guess his biological mother tracked him down, and then Jeff tracked down Jacob."

"Do you know where I could get in contact with his biological mother?" Carol asked.

Linda shook her head and apologized. "I'm sorry, she passed away two years ago, not long after Jeff was sent to prison."

"Do you remember her last name?"

"Yeah," she remembered. "Blythe."

Kevin wrote this down. "And what happened to the brother?"

"I don't know. I never really got to know him, unfortunately. It's too bad; Sean could really use a male figure in his life and Jacob couldn't possibly be any worse than Jeff."

Kevin refrained from saying the first thing that came to mind and instead looked over at Tony, who was reading the paper to an attentive four year old boy. "Looks like he's not doing too badly," he remarked.

"I'm still not sure why you called me in, but I hope I helped in some way." She walked over to Don's desk and held out her arms. "Come on, little man. Let's go home."

"Good-bye," Tony said as the young boy climbed into his mother's arms.

"Bye," he echoed.

"Who's your favourite team, Sean?"

The boy smiled. "Newcastle!"

"Excellent," Tony beamed. "And who's your favourite player?"

"Beckham!"

He groaned and watched as the mother and son walked away. Ignoring Carol and Kevin's laughter, he leaned back and sighed. "There's my case for supporting nurture proven- halfway."

--

"So we're sure it's not her?" Kevin asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee. 

They had moved to the conference room, and Tony now stood in his familiar place by the evidence board. Arms crossed, he considered the possibility.

"Anything's possible, of course," he answered, "but in this case, I don't think so. Look at her interaction with her son; she's far more interested in his life than in Gibbons'. To take the time out of that life to commit to at least two murders that we know of? I just don't see it. Besides, she gave us something better to go on."

"The brother," Carol finished.

"Yep."

"I'll do some background checks- see if I can't locate this brother of his," Kevin said and left the room.

Carol walked up and stood beside Tony who was now facing the board. At the very top he had spelled out "BROTHER" in block letters and circled it several times.

"What's your feeling on this one?" she asked.

"My feeling or the facts?" When he saw her roll her eyes impatiently, he relented. "The facts? Much too early to tell until we know more about the brother. My feeling? It's the best lead we've had. Fits the competitive nature hinted at by the score card; two brothers, trying to best each other."

"Best each other," Carol repeated with disdain. "At murder. Wonderful."

--

_His frustration was mounting. He fidgeted in his chair and looked up at the two photographs pinned to his wall. One short of a tie: double that and he would be one up. But his source, his means of perfect selection, had dried up in the last couple of days. It took all his patience to rein himself in. Patience that had been painstakingly cultivated as he had worked towards this goal over the past four years. His method of selection was clever; it would yield another result soon. 'All good things come to those who wait,' he reminded himself. And he had no problem with waiting._

It would make the results that much sweeter.

--

When Tony came back to earth long enough to notice the time and realize he had been pacing the floor and muttering out loud for almost an hour, he knew it was time to get professional help. Which was how he found himself standing on Carol's doorstep. He waited impatiently for the locks to unlatch and the door to swing open, as he stepped inside he began talking immediately.

"I've been thinking about this, about Gibbons having a brother and what he said…" Tony stopped when he caught sight of Carol's appearance. Dark joggers with what appeared to be paint splatters in various spots. A white T-shirt that was no longer quite white. Hair pinned back off her face. And yellow rubber gloves on her hands. 

"I'm sorry," he said, "I must be in the wrong flat."

"Oh, very funny," she retorted. "Come in, I'm just cleaning the kitchen."

Following behind her, he repeated, "Cleaning the kitchen?"

"Yes. And take off your shoes."

Dutifully complying, he padded through into the kitchen and watched, non-plussed, as Carol began restoring several items to a sparkling refrigerator. He was trying to reconcile this new image of her, with her head in the fridge and a scourer in her hand, with the ones of a totally professional woman that he had long held in his memory banks, when she called over her shoulder. "Fancy a beer?"

"Hmmm? Oh. Yeah."

She caught his look and narrowed her eyes. Years of friendship and whatever else one might want to call it told her immediately what was on his mind. Handing him the beer, she asked, "What? I'm not a police woman 24/7, you know." Feigning disappointment at her plight, she added forlornly, "I do double-duty as a cleaning woman." When the befuddlement didn't leave his eyes, she became slightly more serious. "Do you ever not work? Take some down-time from being a psychologist?"

"I can't help it," he defended before taking a drink of his beer. "It's who I am."

"But it's not who you were born to be. Nurture versus nature, remember?" She removed her gloves and closed the refrigerator door. With a tip of her own beer, she moved them to the nearby table and sat down. He sat quietly for several minutes, as if silently measuring off enough time for her to consider it sufficient 'down-time'.

"All right, Mr. Psychologist," she smirked at his fidgety patience, "spill it. What brought you over?"

"You told me I could come over more," he answered innocently.

"Would that were the case," she sighed. "You've been giving this Gibbons case some more thought. Let's hear it." She laughed when he dived right in.

"In jail, Gibbons said, 'He's not like me. Not quite.' What did he mean by that? 'Not quite.' Was he referring to the murders themselves? That he used all of Gibbons' patterns except the ice cubes? So he's like me as a murderer, but not quite because his signature's slightly different?" Carol didn't bother responding. She knew his questions were rhetorical until he vocalized his entire train of thought. "Or did he mean it in a literal sense? That he's almost like me, on the most basic level, but not quite?" She took a sip of her beer, patient. "What if they're twins?"

Her second sip paused at her lips. "Twins? Are you serious?" Before he could answer, she backtracked. "Of course you're serious. Are you sure?"

"Not sure, no," he admitted, "but it strengthens the brother angle." He leaned forward, sharing his theory excitedly. "Remember what Linda said –the biological mother didn't contact Jeff until five years ago. Jeff found Jacob, let's say a year afterwards. When did the courts determine the first murder occurred?"

"About four years ago," Carol answered, then nodded her head as she began to pick up on Tony's theory. "You think the murders coincided with Jeff and Jacob meeting each other."

Tony nodded. "I mentioned a rivalry, but just as importantly, there may be a sense of bonding, not just as two brothers who are finally reunited, but as genetic copies of one another. Scientists have tried to prove for decades that twins have a bond on a subliminal level the rest of us lack. When they met, I bet it was like looking in the mirror. Beyond the physical similarities, I wonder if a bell didn't ring in them, on a subconscious level as well."

"Okay, I see where you're going with this, but I've never really understood the motive behind the murders in the first place. Jeff Gibbons lashed out at women because he wasn't getting whatever it was he was looking for at home. What's the brother's motive?"

"Jeff Gibbons had a record as long as your arm, starting from the time he was a juvenile. Minor assault, disorderly conduct. He slashed the tires of a female teacher he had in school."

"So you're saying Jacob Gibbons didn't suddenly decide to be a murderer when he met Jeff; that it was probably an escalation of previous troubles with the law."

"Yep. Take a look at Jacob's history and I bet you'll find a pattern that could only have led up to this moment."

Carol sat back and tried to take it all in. "Well, it would explain why Jeff Gibbons' DNA was found at the scene of the first Sutherland murder."

"It's not Jeff's," they said in unison.

"Do you think Jeff will tell us anything if we go back and pay him another visit?"

"Probably not," Tony replied, "but maybe word will get back to Jacob that we know."

"He might slip up."

"Yep."

"Right. Before we go anywhere, let me phone Kevin. See where he's at with the background checks and if any of this matches what he's found out."

Tony looked at his watch. "See? It's seven o'clock. I'm not the only one who doesn't turn off."

Carol got up to get the phone. "Yeah, but he's ambitious."

Tony was pondering the meaning behind her comment when she said, "While I'm on the phone, why don't you turn off for another moment and take out my rubbish."

She pretended not to notice his look of disbelief.

--

"Geoffries."

"Kevin, it's Carol."

"Have you got cameras in the office?" he asked wryly. "I was just about to call you."

"I have eyes everywhere, Kev. Don't ever forget that." He laughed at her tone. Small talk out of the way, she got down to business. "Any luck on the brother?"

"Let's start slowly and work our way up. I want to save the best for last."

"Go on."

"Finally heard back from Germany."

"About bloody time," she said as Tony returned. Seeing his look of surprise, she turned the phone away from her mouth. "Not you," she told him. "The Germans." Back to the phone, she said, "Anything good?"

"Depends on your definition of good, I suppose," Kevin answered. "Great for us, in terms of proving Dr. Hill's theory."

Carol gripped the receiver tightly in anticipation. "There were other murders?"

Kevin nodded, though she couldn't see him. "Yep. Twenty-three in fact."

"Bloody hell," she whispered. She looked at Tony and gave him a thumbs-up. 

"Twenty-three murders between 2000 and 2002, all with the same signature as the Sutherland murders; smothered and stuffed into a freezer. The Germans had almost given up when the murders seemed to have stopped in 2002."

"Why'd they stop?"

"Oh, I'm getting to that," Kevin smiled. "Did the check on the brother. One Jacob Ian Blythe, adopted by Gary and Susan Blakemore of Liverpool when he was ten months old. Gary Blakemore was a doctor and found a full time position at one of Berlin's universities."

"This is good, Kevin."

"Yeah, and there's more. From October of 2002 and up to three months ago, Jacob was in a German prison for beating up a shop keeper."

The pieces quickly fell into place for Carol. "That's why the murders stopped."

"Ironically or not, around the same time his brother got sent to an English prison."

"Where is Jacob Blakemore now, Kevin?"

He sighed. "Sorry, guv, still working on that. I've tried to tail him by his birth name and his adoptive name. Nothing yet."

"Okay," she said. "I guess it's time we notify our Sutherland brethren."

"Guv," Kevin protested.

"I know," she cut him off. "We do all the work and they get all the glory. It's not fair, but right now, that's not the most important issue."

Kevin relented, knowing she was right. "Okay, I'll let Sutherland know."

"I'm going up to the prison; see if Gibbons doesn't have a bit more to say now that we've got his brother over his head. Really good job, Kev."

"Thanks. Oh! I almost forgot the best part. Jeff and Jacob…"

"… are twins," Carol finished.

"How did you know?" he asked in amazement. "You were kidding about those cameras around the office, yeah?"

Carol laughed. "You just never know."

Kevin laughed as well. "I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, this explains the DNA, yeah? And for the sake of accuracy, Jacob is technically the younger of the two; by seven minutes."

"Okay, thanks Kevin," she said appreciatively. "After you've notified Sutherland, go home."

"Will do."

Carol hung up the receiver and looked over at Tony, who was attentive and intrigued, waiting for her to speak.

Without beating around the bush, she said bluntly, "He's our man," then filled him in on the rest.

"Well, that explains the writing on the wall," he said as if it were obvious.

"What do you mean?"

"'E-26, G-25'? E for England, Jeff's haunts," Tony began.

"And G for Germany, Jacob's country of choice," Carol ended.

"Yep. It all seems so simple now, doesn't it?" Tony mused. "Twins, separated practically at birth, go through life not knowing there's a carbon copy of themselves out there. Then, by chance or fate or whatever you want to call it, they meet. And discover they are identical in every way, right down to their dormant murderous impulses."

"Do you really think that's what it was?" Carol asked. "Do you think it was there all along, or do you think perhaps one decided to do it, and the other just followed suit? You said yourself that the scorecard hinted at a competition. Maybe Jeff started it and Jacob, being the younger of the two, regardless of the seven minute gap, felt the pressure of living in the shadow of his older brother." Carol stopped and shook her head. "God, listen to me. I'm sounding like you."

"No need to say it like it's a bad thing."

Her mouth twitched in amusement when she saw his attempt at a sad face. "Anyway, doesn't that undermine your support of nurture over nature?"

"Where you actually listening to that?" he asked. "And here I thought the phone call from Michael was just a clever ruse to get out of listening to me ramble."

"If I don't listen to you ramble, how will I ever learn anything from you?"

He studied her face, looking for any indication that she was being facetious. He found none. Pleased, he went on, "Nurture versus nature can't be simply defined in black and white terms. There are too many influences in the world around us to not shape us, and just too many things still unknown about human beings on a genetic level to dismiss the idea outright. With twins, it's even more of a mystery. That being what it is, I'm not too proud or too stupid to admit when I might be wrong. To commit one murder, maybe two, I might agree and say it was an idea that sprung up between the brothers, but twenty-five murders on Jacob's part? There has to be some sort of psychological driving force to push him forward, to do it again and again."

"And what about the DNA at the scene? Was it meant to let Jeff know it was him, or was it just a mistake?"

Tapping his finger absently on the table, he surmised, "I think it was a mistake. He wouldn't have to let Jeff know who it was; his signature was a clear enough calling card. Notice how it was the very same way Jeff got caught- not through a witness identifying him or the police tracking him down through other means of evidence, but through DNA. The same inexplicable connection between the brothers that started them on this path might also be responsible for Jacob's mistake at the first Sutherland murder."

"On a subconscious level, he wanted to get caught, in the same manner his brother got caught," Carol said.

"Makes sense," Tony agreed.

"I found the fact that Jacob was sent to prison around the same time as Jeff to be rather coincidental as well."

"You know, I've been studying psychology for –God! –almost twenty years. I'm afraid to say that I'm no longer all that surprised by what one human being will do to another, because I've learned there's always some explanation. Generally, of course, there's been some sort of distressing childhood trigger. But I'm still amazed by what the human mind can do to itself, because how do you explain the motivations of the subconscious? You can plan everything out to the last detail, but if your subconscious decides to throw a wrench into it, your carefully laid plans aren't worth the paper you've written them on, real or imagined."

"I sense a lecture for tomorrow," she smiled.

"I'll try not to fall asleep this time," he returned.

Her smile became a laugh. "I meant your class lecture, not mine!"

"So did I," he deadpanned.

"Really!" As her laughter finally trailed away, she looked at her watch and said, "Let's go. I want to talk to Gibbons before they're tucked away for the night."

--


	6. one6

The evening dusk did nothing to soften the grim bleakness of the jail.

"Smile," Carol told Tony. "You get to leave."

He looked around the room and grimaced. "Are we in the same room as before or not? I can't tell."

The presence of two men at the door cut off whatever reply Carol might have had.

"DCI Jordan, Dr. Hill, prisoner #6521478," the officer said by way of introduction.

"Oh, we've met," Gibbons smiled and sat down. "I hope this isn't going to take long; the guards are fluffing my pillow as we speak."

"And how do you think Jacob is sleeping these days?" Carol asked, having none of his bravado. She was pleased to see the smugness slip from his face, even if it was slight.

He quickly covered his surprise and rebutted, "Jacob who?"

Sighing, Carol leaned forward and clasped her hands together. "Listen, I'm tired and, as you said, you don't have much time so let's cut through the bullshit and get to it, shall we? Jacob Blakemore, your brother, your twin, has committed two murders in England and twenty-three murders in Germany. So where is he?"

"Two murders that you know of," Gibbons corrected.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Just something my solicitor came up with."

Carol's eyes narrowed and now it was her turn to cover her surprise. "You're going to try and pin your murders on your brother?"

"Not me," he answered, "but my solicitor's running around like a puppy, talking about how the DNA is no longer conclusive because there are two sources, or something like that. It's all legal mumbo-jumbo to me." His expression said otherwise.

Quickly playing out the options in her head, Carol then waved off Gibbons' theory. "I've read the file; you were in England at the time the pathologist determined time of death."

"Got anything to show Jacob wasn't in England?" he asked, feigning innocence. "Besides, the pathologist himself admitted in court that he couldn't pinpoint exact time of death."

"Yes, nice trick with the ice cubes."

He grinned. "I learned that from the telly."

She tried a different route. "I thought you wanted to go down as one of England's greatest killers? Sort of tossed to the wind if your brother gets the nod for them, doesn't it?"

"Who says I can't have one without the other? You coppers had no other evidence to pin on me except the DNA. DNA that also belongs to my brother. Once a jury hears that, who are they going to find guilty? If they think it's me, my lawyer will say it's my brother. If they think it's my brother, his lawyer will say it's me. I see me having my cake and eating it, too." He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling with a smile of self-satisfaction on his face.

"That's a dangerously simplistic view of the justice system, not to mention your case," Carol remarked, appalled at his conceit.

"Tell that to my solicitor," he smiled.

"What was it like when you first saw him?" Tony said at last.

Gibbons' smile faltered a bit again, knowing Tony wasn't referring to Jeff's solicitor. He looked away and whispered honestly, "Like nothing I'd ever felt before. Have you ever met your soul mate, Dr. Hill?" He received an understanding nod from Tony, so he carried on. "It's the only way I can explain it; like I had gone through life incomplete in some way, I never gave it much thought or even realized it, really, until I met Jacob. And then it was like I was a whole person for the first time. We caught up just like that," he said, winking and clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth, "because there wasn't much to catch up on. His life was mine and mine was his. It was almost scary." He leaned forward. "Same education, same choices in music and food and sports."

"Same murderous impulses," Carol added.

He looked at her, as if just coming out of a daze and laughed. "I suppose so."

"How did it begin, Jeff?" Tony asked softly.

Gibbons bit the inside of his cheek. "I don't know." He saw the look of disbelief on Carol's face and repeated, "I don't know. We were walking by this house. Quiet street. It was dark. Very dark. We could see this silhouette of a woman undressing. I made a joke or Jacob made it, I don't remember. Something about getting a closer look. So we did. We waited for the lights to go out, then waited, maybe another twenty minutes more. We snuck up to the window and got a look. She was sleeping. Alone. And at that moment, I looked over at Jacob and we both knew. We didn't even have to speak. The window was slightly open; it was a warm night. We got in."

"And you killed her," Carol finished.

Gibbons shook his head. "No."

"What?"

"We didn't kill her. We raped her and left."

Carol's hand came up and she slowly covered her mouth to conceal her shock.

"It was only later that we realized we could get caught. So the second time, we got into the room but we didn't rape her."

"You masturbated in the room," Tony said.

"Yeah," he admitted. "We made sure we were careful. See, it was being in the room that was the thrill, not the sex."

"And how did this go from wanking to murder?" Carol asked, doing nothing to disguise her disdain. 

"The girl woke up," Gibbons said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Jacob froze, but I jumped on her."

"Then you realized there was a bigger thrill than being in the room," Tony offered.

Gibbons smirked. "Yeah. Now that, that I had never felt before. Ever. And when I looked over at Jacob, I knew he felt it, too. So I said, "That's one for me'."

Tony revealed a wan smile. "Just like that."

"Just like that," Gibbons repeated.

"Any idea why he would start killing in England?" Carol inquired. "His back yard was Germany."

"My solicitor might disagree with you."

"Come on, Jeff, cut the crap."

"Well, since this conversation is taking place without the presence of my solicitor and isn't being recorded…" He shrugged. "Maybe he got bored of Germany. Maybe he was worried he'd get caught over there. He just got out of jail a couple of months ago; maybe he had had his fill of the place."

"Maybe he wanted to show he could finish the job his big brother started," Tony suggested. "To show he was more clever than you." 

Snorting, Gibbons dismissed the idea. "It wasn't about who was more clever than who. We may be two people, but we're of one mind, don't you understand? If he's upset, I can feel it, right here," he pointed to his chest with his chin. "If he's happy, I can feel myself smiling. If he's angry, I can literally feel my blood boil. If he's killing in England, he's not doing it to show me up; he's doing it to please me."

Carol choked out an empty laugh. "Isn't that nice?"

Ignoring her, he yawned and tried to stretch as much as he could, with his arms cuffed behind his back. "The guards should be finished making up my room." He stood up and waved from behind. "Nice seeing you two again. Come back any time."

He got to the door when Carol called out, "Where is he, Jeff?"

The killer slowly turned. "He's right here," he answered, gesturing to his chest again. Then he laughed. "Betray my own brother? It'd be like betraying myself, wouldn't it?" He turned back to the guard. "Well, come on then; I don't know about you, but I need my beauty sleep."

The second Gibbons and the guard left, Carol stood up. Without bothering to look at Tony, she said, "I need to get out of here," and was walking away before he even had a chance to respond.

--

"Sorry," she apologized when they got to the car. Tony had had a difficult time keeping up with her long hurried strides, and was now breathless in the passenger seat. "I just had to get out of there," she said again. "I really need to take a long hot shower."

"Me, too."

She smiled for the first time since Gibbons had walked into the interrogation room.

He smiled in return. "So, after the long hot shower, what's next?"

"Bed."

"Oh."

Now she really smiled. "Then I call you in the morning and see if you're up for a trip to Sutherland."

"Oh," he said again, feigning disappointment.

"Nelson would be more than willing to share the couch with you, if you wanted," she offered. "It would save me a trip round to your flat in the morning."

He barely paused before agreeing. "Yeah. Sounds good. On our way back, stop by my place first so I can get a change of clothes."

She couldn't help but show her surprise at his decision. She expected the spur of the moment offer, though genuine, to be turned down. "Really?"

"Yeah." He saw the surprise but pretended not to notice. "Don't tell Nelson, but I think I've grown attached."

To what or to whom, he didn't say, and Carol decided to leave it a mystery.

--

Morning came too soon for Carol and she stretched across her bed in protest. She was about to pull the blankets over her head when an unfamiliar aroma wafted into the room. Well, not unfamiliar in its smell, just unfamiliar at this time of the morning, considering she was still in bed.

Coffee.

Then she remembered.

Tony.

--

They had stopped by his place first, as requested, and picked up an overnight bag. Returning to her flat, they had shared some wine and talked about the case.

"Is there any merit to his claim that his brother could have committed all the murders?" Carol asked.

Tony rested his head on the back of the couch as the wine warmed through him. "I don't think so. I think his story about the first murder is true. The police were unaware there was another person at the scene, but other than that, it seems like a very feasible story."

Carol had deduced as much, but it was good to hear it from someone else. "I'll call Kevin first thing in the morning. Find out if he can pinpoint Gibbons whereabouts during the time of the rape. Maybe we can locate this woman, see if we can talk to her."

"Over fifty percent of rape cases are never reported."

"I know, I know," she sighed, "but it won't hurt. Besides, Kevin likes looking for needles in haystacks."

Tony smiled and closed his eyes. "Remind me to phone Kate in the morning and get her to find a replacement for my two classes."

Carol mirrored his recline. "She doesn't like me."

"Who?"

"Kate."

"Oh really?" he mused. "Then maybe I'll get you to call her in the morning." He felt a slap on his chest and laughed. Then a familiar bundle of fur jumped up onto his lap. "Is that a hint, Nelson?" Tony asked the cat. After several moments of enduring Nelson's not-so-gentle kneading, Tony carefully stood up. "I get the hint. You sit over here while I make your life more comfortable," he said as he placed the cat on a nearby chair. He turned to find Carol already making up the couch.

"You didn't even put the blankets away from the last time," he noted.

"Why would I?" she asked slyly. "I always knew you'd come back." She laughed at his face. "Close your mouth and help me."

--

There was another smell, though just barely touching the edges of her sense. Soap. 'He must have gotten up incredibly early to have a shower and avoid any accidental meetings in the bathroom,' she thought with a grin. With one final desperate attempt, she freed herself from the captivating warmth of her bed and stood up. She allowed herself on last stretch before padding across the room, the carpet soft and soothing under her bare feet. On her way to the kitchen, she caught sight of Tony sitting on the couch, reading the paper and absently scratching behind the ear of an appreciative Nelson.

"Morning," she said, and kept walking, drawn towards the aroma of coffee.

"There's coffee in…"

"Mmmm, I know."

As she poured herself a cup and tossed two pieces of bread into the toaster, she was aware that Tony was staring at her. With her back to him, she said, "I don't sleep in a suit, you know."

"Hmmm? Oh. Right. Sorry."

"You've just never seen me in pyjamas before," she supplied helpfully.

"Well, now that you mention it, no," he admitted. "First I catch you cleaning your kitchen, now this. I can only take so many surprises in one week, Carol."

She saw his barely concealed smile and tossed back, "Then you'd better be prepared; I've got a few more for you."

The stretching silence was broken by the toast, jumping to attention.

--

At the door, she looked around. "I.D., money, gun, keys. I phoned Kevin and you phoned Kate. Fed Nelson and turned off the coffee pot. Right. Let's go."

Tony blinked in amazement at her efficient mental checklist. All he could think of saying in return was, "You carry a gun?"

"Surprised?" she quipped.

--

The minute he walked into the room, he knew it was the place.

"What the bloody hell are you smiling about?" his partner grunted as they carefully put down the appliance. "It's ten in the morning, we've got eight more deliveries today and it's going to be hotter than Hell."

His answer wasn't a complete lie. "I was just thinking how glad I am there aren't any stairs in this place."

"Ah, well, I'll give you that," the other man agreed. "Only two deliveries and me back's already killing me."

He watched as the pretty brunette dutifully signed the delivery papers. Indulging himself, he took one more glance around the flat before following his partner out the door.

'Perfect,' he thought and smiled again.

--

"You know the one thing that puzzles me about this case?" Tony asked as they drove down the motorway towards Sutherland.

Carol laughed. Seeing his look of confusion, she clarified, "Sorry, it's just I wouldn't know where to start, if you were expecting an answer. Anyway, go on."

Picking up where he left off, he continued, "The first murder in Sutherland. It was the only one out of the twenty-five that involved dismemberment. Strange."

She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in thought. "He had to do it in order to fulfill his signature."

"The signature after smothering by hand being the freezer," Tony said.

"So, let's look at it from the other murders. No dismemberment because he didn't have to fit them into the freezer."

"Which must mean every other murder had a freezer large enough to accommodate his signature."

"And the body."

"And the body." He glanced over to her, enjoying the mental volleying. "What do you think the odds are that each flat would miraculously have a freezer fit for his needs?"

"He's been in the house before the murders."

He nodded in agreement. "Very likely. What job would allow someone into the house of a stranger?"

Carol frowned. "Kevin found no history of employment for Jacob since he got out of jail."

"Okay, so maybe he's getting paid on the side. That still helps us narrow it down. Probably not in sales. And Jeff Gibbons didn't strike me as the religious type, so I think we can rule out that angle."

"General labourer," Carol offered.

"Carpentry?"

"Electrician?"

"Plumber."

"Delivery."

"Delivery," he repeated, almost to himself. There was a moment of silence before he smacked his hands together. "Yes! Delivery. Think about it, Carol," he said, picking up the trail excitedly, "he knows there are freezers at each murder to accommodate his signature because he delivers them! He uses his job to select his victims based on what he finds at the addresses he delivers to. It's brilliant, really."

"Brilliant," Carol sighed. "Really."

Changing course, Tony asked, "What are you going to tell DCI Samuels when we arrive?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," she confessed. "It just sticks in my throat that we've done all the work and he'll get the reward."

"It's not a competition, Carol."

"Spoken like a man who's allergic to politics."

The corners of his mouth turned downward and he made a sour face at the word. "Point taken."

"Anyway," she went on, "I think I'll just tell him we're following up on a piece of information that, at this time, I considered too inconsequential to waste his time with."

"Oh," Tony said in an appreciative tone, "you're good."

"Thank you."

"And the psychologist?"

"Oh, you're good too, I suppose," she answered playfully.

"I meant, how are you going to explain bringing a psychologist with you?"

"I won't. What I do to forward an investigation has no bearing on his case. It's none of his business."

"So I'll just stand quietly to the side then, yeah?" he mused.

She grinned. "Yeah."

"Right," he answered. He looked out the window for several moments before turning back sharply to Carol. "What did you mean by 'I suppose'?"

--


	7. one7

A/NL: Yes, I know British cops don't carry guns. (But they do on "Touching Evil"! whines) Consider it a huge stroke of artistic license.

--

"So where to first?" Carol asked as they turned off the motorway and watched as the sparse scattering of suburbs drew closer and closer together, creating and shaping the city of Sutherland. "First murder?"

"Yeah," Tony answered. "It's the only anomaly in the chain of murders. I'd like to find out why."

"Okay."

After two stops to ask for directions, they finally pulled down a long residential street.

"Park here," he instructed.

Following his direction, she pulled into the vacant spot and turned off the engine. The victim's flat, five doors down, could be clearly seen from their vantage point. Tony looked around, acclimatizing himself with to the surroundings. Finding some kind of satisfaction that Carol couldn't identify, he unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car. She followed suit and watched him look around again. Then he began walking down the pavement towards the flat. Carol quietly fell in step behind him, allowing him this moment of meditation and at the end of the path that led up to the door, Tony stopped and waited for Carol her. They walked together and she rang the bell. A young man, somewhere in his mid-twenties answered the door. If the mussed hair and gaunt face was any indication, he hadn't slept for days.

"Yes?" He asked tersely.

Carol flashed her I.D . "I'm DCI Carol Jordan. I was wondering if we could have a word?"

Tony began to wander away, towards a nearby window.

The young man jerked his head in Tony's direction. "Who's he?"

"My partner," Carol replied, somewhat comfortable that it wasn't an outright lie.

As if hearing his name called, Tony turned to the pair. Pointing to the window, he asked, "May I?"

Puzzled, the man shrugged and said, "Whatever."

"Can I come in, Mr…" Carol asked.

"Saunders. Dave Saunders. I'm Brenda's boyfriend." He choked up slightly. "I mean, I was." Realizing Carol's request, he stepped back. "Come in. Though I don't know what you hope to find. Your other colleagues went through here with a fine-tooth comb. Found nothing," he added bitterly.

"Tony," she said as she began to enter the flat. Seeing his intent focus, she knew well enough not to bother calling his name again. His mind was in a place she now recognized all too well. It was an ability he had that both amazed her and unsettled her.

Entering the flat, she soon realized what Saunders had meant by finding nothing. Boxes of various sizes were neatly stacked and labeled against walls in every room in her field of view.

"Brenda's things," Saunders explained. "I'm sending them to her mum. I didn't know what else to do with them. I didn't want to get rid of them, but I couldn't imagine keeping them, either. Too much of a reminder…" he trailed away sadly.

Carol touched his arm. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Saunders." When he nodded his thanks, she asked, "Mind if I look around?"

"Go ahead."

Outside, Tony was still standing in the same spot Carol had last seen him. He noted the tree and how it partially blocked the view from the street.

"That was convenient, wasn't it, Jacob?" he whispered. In Tony's mind, the sky was dark, and the streetlight filtered through the obstructing tree like tiny pieces of mirror. The slight breeze cooled the thin veil of sweat on his brow. He stood close to the window and looked in. The room was bare except for a few boxes stacked in the corner, but Tony envisioned it as it must have been that night –a dark room, the headboard of the bed touching the wall, but the bed accessible from both sides. A small table and with a lamp to one side. A wardrobe in the corner. He slowly slid the window up and, with little difficulty, lifted himself onto the ledge. It only took the quiet swing of his right leg over the sill, and he was in. It was silent. Nothing except the peaceful inhalation and exhalations of the sleeping form on the bed overlaid with the excited thump of his own heart: he wondered if it would wake her. Standing beside the bed, it seemed so easy, because it was. Just lean over and cover her mouth…

--

Carol was hoping Tony was having better luck because, so far, she was having none. Then she walked into the utility room.

"Mr. Saunders," she called out.

He was at her side almost immediately. "Yeah?"

She pointed to the long white freezer. "When did you get that?"

"The day before Brenda was… died," he answered. "I told her it was too big; what in the world would she do with it, you know? But she liked to stock up on things. I always joked we could open a store if there was ever some kind of disaster." He couldn't help but smile. "Anyway," he went on, "the damn thing is broken. We thought the delivery guys hit one of the coils on the back when they brought it in. I've been meaning to call them back, but…" his voice grew soft again.

"Do you remember the name of the delivery company?"

The boyfriend squinted. "I don't know. A bird in the name. I've got the bill somewhere; if it's important, I can see if I can find it."

Carol tried not to look too hopeful. "Yes, please, if you could. I'm going to go find my partner."

--

She stood in the doorway but didn't speak. Tony was standing in the middle of the bedroom, looking down at some vacant point on the floor. She wondered what he was thinking.

"In the right frame of mind, I am the killer."

"Jesus!" she exclaimed, startled by his voice.

He turned and showed a ghost of a smile. "No."

Content that her heart was beating again, she smirked. "I'll say. Go on."

"At some point in almost every case, there's a time when everything is clear."

"Like an epiphany?"

"I don't know. I do know that for a brief moment, I can step into the killer's shoes." He caught Carol's look and it took him a minute before he realized the source of her amusement. "I didn't wank outside the window, if that's what you're getting at!"

Despite the dismal surroundings, they both smiled, the tension relieved.

"I've got something on that freezer dilemma we had," she told him.

"And?"

"And, there is a freezer of sufficient size here. Delivered the day before the murder. The kicker is, it must have been damaged during delivery. It's still sitting in the utility room; the boyfriend hasn't had a chance to call them back."

"Ah," he said in realization, "it wasn't working when Jacob came back."

"You got it," Carol replied.

Saunders stepped into the doorway. Barely glancing into the room, he handed Carol a slip of paper.

"Crane Delivery," he said. "That's who delivered the freezer."

Carol gently took it out of his outstretched hand. "Thank you."

Both she and Tony respectfully left the room so that Saunders didn't have to face it. He closed the door softly and turned away from it.

"Sorry," he apologized, "but I can hardly stand it, you know?"

"Perfectly understandable," Tony replied.

The young man leaned against the door and looked down at his feet. "The day… it happened, it was absolute madness here; police everywhere, asking me a hundred questions. Where was I the night before? Had we fought? How did I find her?" He paused, remembering. "I thought she was running late, so I came in and put the kettle on. I opened the fridge to get the milk and saw all the frozen foods on the bottom shelf. It didn't make sense. Why would Brenda do that?" He stopped talking again. Inhaling a shaky breath, he continued, "I opened the freezer to see what was wrong." He made a face between anger and grief. "I threw up on the floor. And I just stood there. It felt like hours. Then, I don't know how, but somehow I called the police. They found the mess and… in the bathroom."

Carol had read the file. She knew the bathroom was where the dismemberment took place. She also knew that not all of the body had fit in the freezer; police found the rest in the bath.

"I was angry that the police were here," Saunders went on. "I didn't care who did it, I just wanted them gone. It was like some horrible dream. I kept thinking I was going to wake up at any minute. Of course, I didn't." He looked at them with an empty smile. "Now all I want is some kind of closure, and the police are nowhere to be found."

"We're here," Carol promised, "and we will not let this go away until the person who did this is brought to justice."

"Justice," he repeated in a hollow voice. "But in the end, what amount of justice will bring Brenda back, I wonder?"

"None," Tony answered truthfully, "but it will bring you your closure."

"I hope so." He pushed himself away from the door. "Listen, I've got to get back to things or I'll never be able to do it. I wrote my phone number on the back of that paper, Ms. Jordan. If you find out anything…"

Carol nodded. "I will definitely call you."

"Thanks."

--

"What now?" Tony asked when they got back to the car.

Carol propped her elbow on the window ledge and rested her fingers against her forehead. "I suppose I've got to call DCI Samuels now. Tell him to meet us at the delivery place." She picked up her phone reluctantly.

"Should be interesting, explaining how we came across that information before contacting him the minute we set foot in Sutherland," Tony remarked.

She didn't bother to look at him. "I hate your logical mind sometimes, you know that?"

--

She hung up the phone. "Well, that went better than I expected," she said. "Both my eardrums are still intact."

"Barely," Tony replied, tapping his own ear as if checking to see if it worked.

"DCI Samuels" were probably the only words he'd spoken at a tolerable level. As Carol brought him up to speed on what they had found, his voice became louder and louder until it literally cracked when he bellowed, "You went to the victim's house?!"

"Yes," Carol answered, holding the phone away from her ear.

"Without my authority?"

She understood his irritation. Had the roles been reversed, she was sure she'd be none too pleased to have another officer coming into her city. However, she had had just about enough of his blustering. "Listen. Number one, I don't need your authority. Number two," she continued over his objection, "if it wasn't for the work of my department, you wouldn't be this far. And number three, I'm going with or without you. Your choice." And disconnected the call.

"That noise you hear is DCI Samuels head exploding," Tony remarked.

"Tough shit," Carol retorted, and turned the ignition. "And he bloody well better be there when we show up." The wheels gave a slight squeal of protest as she peeled out of the parking spot.

"I'll just sit quietly here in the corner," Tony meekly informed.

A smile played at the corner of her mouth. "You do that."

--

Fifteen minutes later they turned into the industrial estate of Crane Delivery, housed in a large unit set back from the road. The imposing figure of DCI Samuels leaning against his car greeted them as they pulled up to the building.

Tony looked over to Carol. "Will you get in hot water over this?"

She exhaled unhappily. "Who knows? We were told to work together, so it's probably all good with the higher ups if we solve this one. I'll doubt I'll ever be welcome in Sutherland again, though."

Tony's mouth turned downward. "Well, from what I've seen, you won't be missing much."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"Do I need a reason?" Before he could answer, she undid her seatbelt and got out of the car. Leaning back in, she asked, "You coming?"

"Oh," he answered, surprised.

"If I'm no longer welcome in Sutherland, then neither should you be," she quipped.

As soon as they were within arms' reach, Carol held out her hand. "DCI Samuels, I'm DCI Carol Jordan."

He glanced down at her proffered hand and looked for a moment as if he'd rebuff the invitation. "DCI Jordan," he said, shaking her hand unenthusiastically. 

She gestured to Tony. "This is Tony Hill. He discovered the German connection."

Samuels greeting to Tony was as equally uninspired as his welcome to Carol. "Oh yes? That's fantastic," he said blandly. "You two go around the back; I'll take the front."

Carol looked around. "Where's your back-up?"

His gaze went lazily from Carol, to Tony, and back to Carol again. "Where's yours?"

Very wisely, Tony took hold of Carol's arm. "Let's go," he whispered.

"Ignorant bastard," she muttered as they made their way to the back of the building.

As they turned the corner, the area opened up to reveal a hive of activity. Where the purpose of the front of the building was for customer service, it was the back where things got done. The door of a large warehouse was open like a gigantic garage, and several trucks were lined up at its entrance. Men of various sizes milled about or were helping to transfer cardboard boxes from the warehouse to the trucks. Pictures and labels identified the contents as ovens, washing machines, refrigerators, or freezers.

"We're definitely in the right place," Carol remarked.

A burly man in overalls that had seen better days approached. A patch bearing the name "Tim" was helpfully stitched above his left breast pocket.

"Hello. I'm afraid you're not supposed to be back here," he said. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Carol went to reach for her I.D., but was stopped by Tony's hand on her arm.

"Me and the missus had a freezer delivered the other day. The two men who delivered it were extremely helpful. As you can imagine, I wasn't much use."

The man gave Tony the once-over and snorted his agreement.

"Anyway, we didn't get the chance to properly thank them." Tony reached back for his wallet.

"That's not necessary," Tim replied.

Tony leaned forward conspiratorially. "The missus insists. You know how they are."

The other man nodded. "Don't I know it. Married for thirty years. What was the name of the delivery men?"

Frowning, Tony turned to Carol. "Sweetheart, what was the name of that delivery man? John? Jim?"

She went along with his ruse. "Jack?"

Tim's eyes lit up. "Jacob?"

In unison, Carol and Tony turned to agree. Tony snapped his fingers. "That's it; Jacob. I don't remember the other bloke."

"Andy," Tim answered. "They always work together." He squinted around. "There's your man," he pointed. "Sitting on that stack of boxes, eating his lunch."

"Thanks, Tim," Carol replied.

They walked casually in Jacob's direction, careful not to draw attention. The killer sat unassumingly on his perch, absently eating a sandwich and flipping through the newspaper. Tony and Carol's approach must have caught the corner of his peripheral vision, because he turned his head to greet them with a neutral reception.

--

_It wasn't the blonde's expression that registered with him; it was the dark-haired man. His intensely blue eyes, though soft around the edges, were hard in the center and he pinned him with a penetrating gaze. At that moment, he knew it was all over; it was only a question of how the end would play out._

--

DCI Samuels chose that moment to announce his arrival. Having come through the front and found nothing, he had worked his way through the office to the back of the building. He came out just in time to see the scene unfolding between Carol, Tony and Jacob. Drawing his gun, he identified himself. "Jacob Blakemore! Police! Don't move!"

Tony closed his eyes in disbelief. "Stupid." By the time he opened his eyes again, Jacob was long gone.

"Shit!" Carol shouted and tore a strip off Samuels with a look.

"It's my mark," Samuels huffed. "My backyard, my case. My mark." He bolted in Blakemore's direction, not caring whether or not Carol was behind him.

"Shit," she said again, but this time in a whisper. She unholstered her gun and looked over at Tony. "You stay right here, do you understand? Right here." Receiving an acknowledgment of her order, she took off after Samuels.

--

_His knowledge of the warehouse served him well. That stupid cop was probably lost by now. He thought of the man who had frozen him with a look. Didn't look like a cop by any stretch of the imagination. But by the expression on his face when the cop pulled his gun, he knew what was going on. Now, the blonde bird, definitely a cop._

So now what? It wasn't supposed to end like this –he wasn't finished. One to tie, two to win, one to tie, two to win. He wouldn't let Jeff have the satisfaction, thinking he had bested his little brother. A sudden noise caught his attention, and he looked down from his hideaway high among the surplus of boxes and crates. It was that stupid cop. He knew what he had to do.

--

He heard the sound, but before DCI Samuels could so anything, it was already too late. The large, heavy, boxed oven hit his shoulder, felling him like a tree. He heard his gun clatter to the ground, but his only thought was the pain. Blinding, blinding pain as the crate pinned his legs to the floor. He was too scared to even venture a look at his arm. Numb, all he could do was look up. Hovering over him, a good thirty feet up, was the grinning face of Jacob Blakemore. His mind registered the killer's quick descent down the cardboard mountain, and watched helplessly as he jumped to the floor and picked up the gun. He was screaming in his head, but nothing was coming out. The only words he heard belonged to the man who would end his life.

"Do you know who you are?" Jacob asked. "You're number twenty-six."

--

Tony heard the shot and nearly jumped out of his skin. 

"Carol!" he shouted, but got no response. "Carol!" he yelled again, fear creeping into his voice.

Several men ran out of the warehouse, and several more gathered around, about thirty feet from the entrance.

"What the hell was that?" one asked.

Tony looked around for a familiar face and found it. "Tim!" When he stepped forward, Tony told him, "Call the police and don't let anyone go back into the warehouse, right?"

The older man nodded dutifully. "Will do." He waved to a nearby co-worker. "Ian, call the cops." As Tony jogged into the warehouse, Tim yelled, "Oi! Where are you going?"

--

'It's a bloody labyrinth,' Carol sighed as she weaved her way through the maze of containers. They were set up in some sort of system, she was sure, though she'd be damned if she could figure it out. When she had double-backed on herself twice, she took to marking the boxes with her pen. That seemed to be narrowing down the possible routes.

Then she heard the crash, and then the gun shot. She closed her eyes and focussed on the sound. 'To the left and about fifty feet away,' she deduced. She looked around and figured that, under the circumstances, fifty feet might as well be fifty yards.

--

_  
He looked down at the lifeless body and tried to gauge the reactions of his own. He had never shot anyone before, and never killed a man. He was worried it wouldn't be the same, but he was surprised to discover the same shot of adrenaline coursed through his body. Looking down at the tent in his pants, he couldn't help but laugh quietly. 'Not now, you silly bastard,' he chastised himself. He willed his body under control. 'Relax, relax, relax,' he chanted in a whisper. He took a few deep breaths then bent down. Fulfilling one last conceit, he slid the tip of his index finger through the cop's blood and scrawled 'E-26, G-26' on the side of the very box that had stopped the cop dead in his tracks. He smiled at the pun and softly slipped away._

--

Tony was just about ready to scream with frustration when he came around the corner and saw Samuels on the cement floor. Steeling himself, he walked closer to inspect the body.

'Well, that accounts for the gun shot,' he thought to himself, when he saw the wound in Samuels' forehead. Try as he might, he couldn't help but feel relief that it wasn't Carol. One shot, one wound. That meant Carol was still alive.

Glancing around, he saw the updated scorecard on the box. A closer look around revealed the partial outline of bloody footprints that seemed to circle back towards him. He was just about to turn around and follow them when he felt a warm forearm snake around his throat and a cold gun press against his temple.

"Who are you?"

"Tony."

"That's nice, Tony. Now, who are you?"

"I'm a psychologist."

"They sent a head doctor after me?" Jacob laughed. "Fantastic. Who's the blonde with you?"

Tony remained silent.

Pressing the gun tighter against Tony's head, he repeated, "Who is she? Cop?" When there was still no response from Tony, Jacob said, "That's okay. I'll take your silence as a 'yes'." He shifted their position until he had his back against a tower of boxes and a clear view of the small inlet of space. "Well, let's get this over with, shall we? Call her name."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Don't be thick. Call her name or I'll shoot you."

Keeping his voice low, Tony responded, "You'll shoot me anyway. And if you shoot me, you lose the element of surprise and the hostage."

"Bloody hell, you are a head doctor," Jacob chuckled. He turned his head away from Tony and called out, "Lady cop! I've got your Tony. If you're smart enough to follow my voice, I want you to show yourself. Slowly, and with no weapon. I'll count to ten and then Mr. Tony gets it."

There was no response, so Jacob began counting.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

He called out a bit louder, impatient.

"Five!"

"Six!"

"I'm here," Carol's voice said.

"Where?"

She slowly came out from behind a stack of boxes. Her gun was held level, and aimed directly at Jacob.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"Carol."

He twisted to look at Tony. "See? That wasn't so hard." Looking back to her, he said, "Carol. Put down your gun."

She hesitated and Tony blurted, "Don't do it, Carol. He's killed Samuels. He'll kill me, then he'll kill you."

The muzzle pressed harder into his temple. "I'm going to kill you anyway," Jacob promised.

"And before I hit the floor, she'll kill you."

"Tony, shut up," Carol said.

"Yeah Tony, shut up."

"What would Jeff say, I wonder?" Tony mused.

"What?"

"Well, he had the good sense not to be so stupid as to get himself killed."

Jacob leaned into Tony's ear. "I'm not dead yet."

"But you will be."

"Enough!" Jacob yelled. "Put down the gun, or I'll shoot him."

"But you said you were going to kill me anyway."

Both Carol and Jacob shouted, "Shut up!"

Considering the situation, Tony looked rather unaffected by their reaction. 

Impatient, Jacob pointed the gun at Carol. "Maybe I should just kill you, since you have the weapon." The click of the hammer being pulled back reverberated in Tony's ear.

And then all was silent.

He was aware of the weight of Jacob's body leaning into his back and they both toppled forward. Tony felt his arms brace the impact, and the hard floor bruise his knees. The cement was cool and smooth against his cheek as he waited for the life to seep out of him.

Then, just as abruptly as it had left, sound returned, just as if he had raised his head out of water.

"Tony. Tony!" came Carol's anxious voice.

The weight was lifted and her hands were on his shoulders, turning him over. She cupped his face in her hands and said again, "Tony."

"Carol," he replied simply.

He blinked several times, as if trying to figure out what had just happened. Turning his head, he saw the lifeless form of Jacob Blakemore beside him; his empty eyes staring blankly into oblivion. He had an ugly gaping wound through his shattered cheekbone.

"You shot at me!" Tony exclaimed.

She curled her hand behind his head and helped him sit up. "I shot in your direction. And I told you to stay where you were!" she rebutted. More softly, she said, "Anyway, you told me to shoot him."

"Jesus Christ!"

"What?" she asked, smiling, though the slight tremble in her hands told the real story. "I was waiting for you to bloody well shut up."

He stared into her eyes, taking it all in. "Don't ever do that again," he ordered. She tilted her head questioningly. "Don't ever risk your life for mine. Ever."

"Stop talking nonsense. Neither one of us can say with any certainty how it might have played out. If he had been smart, he would have shot me first."

"Don't."

"Well, just making an observation, Dr. Hill." She helped him stand up, and they stood, only inches apart, for several moments. As last, she said, "Besides, I'm going to have to explain to John Brandon how a civilian –namely you –ended up in the middle of a stand-off involving guns. And if I'm going to be called to the carpet, you're damn well going to be there with me. So, I need you alive." Tony frowned, and she gently patted his cheek. "Live and learn."

--

Tony came out of the office and patted his arms and his legs, as if searching for a set of keys. "Are all my limbs still attached?" he wondered aloud.

Carol had stopped to see what he was up to, and when she realized his joke, she shook her head sternly. "Not funny."

"Not funny? You were the one giggling in there," he accused.

Moments ago, as they stood repentently in front of John Brandon, Tony quickly realized that "called to the carpet" was Carol's polite way of saying, "getting a boot up the arse". He swore he felt his hair breeze back from Brandon's verbal assault.

"One dead criminal and one dead cop. Is that your idea of balancing the scales, Carol?" Brandon bellowed.

She knew it was rhetorical, but thought it best she answer anyway. "No, sir, I…"

"Well, I should hope not!" he cut off. "Not only do I have to explain how one of Bradfield's own ended up in the middle of a Sutherland fiasco, but I have to explain how one of theirs ended up dead and you didn't."

"Thank you for your concern, sir," Carol replied flatly.

"Don't push it, DCI Jordan," he warned punctuating the statement with a hard stare. 

"Yes, sir."

Tony decided to speak up. "I take full…"

The hard stare swung in his direction. "Oh, I haven't forgotten about you, Dr. Hill. Unfortunately, right now I'm too busy trying to wade through Carol's involvement to even attempt to get into the reasoning behind yours."

"Yes, sir," Tony replied meekly, despite the fact that Brandon wasn't even his boss.

Carol did everything she could to suppress her smile.

The sharp eyes of Brandon caught her attempt. "Am I missing the joke?"

"No, sir, there's no joke."

"There certainly isn't." Sitting down, he glared up at them. "I expect a full, and lengthy report from both of you, on my desk, by morning."

"Yes, sir," they answered in unison.

They took Brandon's silence as their dismissal. The minute they turned to leave, Tony could see Carol's lips pressing hard together as she fought her impulse to laugh out loud. He looked away quickly, in order to retain his own self-control.

"By the way," Brandon said, stopping them in their tracks, "I received a phone call today from Bradfield Prison. Jeff Gibbons committed suicide in his cell approximately two hours ago."

That was enough to remind them of the severity of the situation, and they left the office with their heads low.

"Did you see the suicide coming?" she asked Tony, when they were alone in the corridor.

He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet. "I wouldn't have predicted it," he admitted, "but I can't say I'm surprised. Remember what Gibbons told us- whatever Jacob felt, Jeff believed he felt it, too."

Carol raised her eyebrows. "You don't really believe that, do you? That they had some sort of psychic connection."

"It's not what I believe; it's what Jeff Gibbons believed. Gibbons said when he met his brother, it was like he was a whole person for the first time in his life. Of course, maybe a guard or someone on the inside somehow found out about Jacob's death and passed it on. Maybe when he found out Jacob was dead he didn't see reason to continue living as half a person. Or maybe, just maybe, there are things still left unknown about the human psyche."

"Things you don't know about?" she remarked wryly. "Colour me surprised."

"You were right, Carol." He gave it sufficient pause before adding, "Not funny."

"So," she said, "what's next? Should I come over after work? We could compare notes, make sure our reports pass Brandon's inspection. You are the professor amongst us, after all."

"I don't know, Carol," he replied. "After work? I was thinking of cleaning my kitchen."

"Oh, all right," she volleyed back. "I'll see you in the morning then, when you leave your report with Brandon."

Clearly, this was not the response Tony was looking for. Barely hiding his disappointment, he said, "So you won't be coming over, then?"

She winked. "I thought I'd try my hand at reverse psychology; I'm surprised it worked."

Tony's eyes widened in amazement. "You tried it on a psychologist?" He replayed the exchange in his head and admitted admirably, "Well done."

"I'm learning from the best."

He smiled his thanks, and as they walked down the corridor, shoulder to shoulder, they were silent, content in their thoughts, content in each other's company.

-end.


End file.
